❝ dream a little bigger, darling. ❞

Fic: All is Violent, All is Bright 11/11

2011-10-03T04:42:12Z

Title: All is Violent, All is Bright 11/11
Author: lezzerlee
Team: ANGST
Prompt: innocence
Word count: 1,284 this part
Rating: PG-13 - NC-17 (This part NC-17)
Warnings: Underage 15/17, Apocalypse & general destruction, Violence, Mentions of death, violence towards animals (hunting: prev parts )
Betas: night_reveals
Notes: So this chapter was waiting art, but unfortunately the art was delayed. It will be added when it is finished!!!
Summary: Apocalypse AU / a.k.a bb!Survival / a.k.a. cockblockalypse!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Also available on AO3

____

Arthur wakes to light kisses trailing down the sensitive skin of his stomach. He’s ticklish and the muscles of his abdomen twitch as butterfly-soft pressure moves over them. Sighing with residual sleepiness, Arthur arches into the press of lips, stretching his back up off the bed and loosening his muscles.

When he yawns, a tongue slides into his mouth, interrupting it and stealing his breath. He deepens the kiss, searching with his own tongue, exploring over teeth and soft palate until he needs oxygen more than he can stand.

“Good morning,” Arthur says, smiling as he pushes Eames away.

Eames is propped on one arm above him, smiling down. “Good morning,” he says in a sleep or arousal roughened voice.

The gruffness of it makes Arthur’s cock witch and he raises a hand to brush disorderly tufts of hair from Eames’ face. Eames bends down to steal another kiss as his hand splays over Arthur’s side, massaging absently as his tongue searches the depths of Arthur’s mouth.

Eames shifts his hips, pressing into Arthur and eliciting a throaty moan in reaction. Arthur can feel Eames grin against his lips. Eames rolls his hips again, applying sweet pressure to Arthur’s morning erection which makes Arthur moan in response. He thrusts his own hips off the bed as much as he can against Eames’ weight.

“How did you get so heavy?” Arthur gasps when he sucks in a breath of air.

“You love it,” Eames responds.

He seals his lips over Arthur’s again, shutting him up. The kissing turns more urgent as they grind themselves together. Finally Arthur can’t take it anymore; he breaks the kiss, murmuring, “Eames, please,” into the small gap between their lips.

Eames growls against him, leveling one last peck to Arthur’s lips before he moves lower, biting and sucking at his neck, the dip of his collarbone, his nipple, his navel, and the juncture of his hip. Arthur gasps and writhes, sensitive and ticklish to Eames’ attention.

Eames sucks him into his mouth and Arthur’s eyes squeeze shut as he’s overwhelmed with the slick, wet suction around his cock. He must make a noise because he feels Eames laugh around him, sending vibrations down the length of his erection to settle at the base. Eames continues to suck, picking up the pace only to slow it down, swirling his tongue around the sensitive head of Arthur’s prick before engulfing him down to the base again.

Arthur can feel the pressure build, can feel his balls draw up in anticipation. “Eames,” he chokes out. “I don’t think … I’m not going to last. Please.”

Eames dips down one last time, pressing his tongue along the veins of Arthur’s shaft before he pulls off with a wet pop. Instead of coming up for another kiss like Arthur expects, Eames spreads Arthur’s legs farther, pushing them back and up. It forces Arthur’s hips up and off the bed. Arthur groans when he feels Eames’ tongue lick a wet stripe up from his tailbone to his balls. Eames sucks at the base of his cock before dipping back down to swirl around the sensitive ring of his asshole.

“Ah … ah,” is all Arthur can manage to articulate as Eames works him over. Eames’ tongue presses in firmly, urging Arthur to relax. Eames backs off, licking lines over the twitching muscle before poking back in.

It seems like an eternity of teasing, licking, sucking before Arthur finally feels the press of a slicked finger slipping inside of him. He is so loose that there is nearly no resistance at all, and he whimpers because it’s not enough. Looking down between his own legs, Arthur finds Eames staring up at him, smiling fondly, wickedly, and possessively. Arthur vaguely wonders how Eames can fit all of those emotions in to one expression. He can’t think on it long because Eames is adding another finger, slipping it in to stretch him more.

It’s still not enough. Arthur is ready and he wants more. Looking down at Eames again, he tries to form words around his tongue that has become too thick and heavy in his own mouth. “Eames, enough,” he finally manages. “I … ah … ah … I need. I need more.”

Eames, the bastard, is tonguing the stretch of Arthur’s muscle around his fingers. His other had cups over Arthur’s cock and Arthur attempts to push up into it, demanding more pressure. Eames relents, pulling his fingers free which makes Arthur shudder. His hole grasps, twitches with loss.

Eames licks at his own palm, applying as much spit as possible before wrapping his hand around his own cock. He reaches for the bottle of lube they have and pours just enough straight unto Arthur’s hole. Arthur watches as Eames lines himself up before pressing in slowly. The slide is delicious and Arthur hums his approval, bearing down to let Eames sink in with one smooth stroke.

Eames’ eyes flutter shut and he lets out a little gasped curse. He stays still for a moment, letting Arthur adjust, before he falls forward. He catches himself on his arm just before he can crush Arthur with his weight. Capturing Arthur’s mouth in another kiss, Eames begins to rock slowly, sliding in and out of Arthur at an excruciatingly slow pace.

It’s lazy, and wonderful, and perfect. Arthur wants it to never end; he wants Eames to fuck him all day, slowly. But the pressure, the need to come builds until he can’t take it anymore and he reaches behind Eames’ legs, grabbing at his ass and urging for a quicker pace.

Eames thrusts harder, his panting leaving Arthur’s neck wet and hot. Arthur turns his head to the side, to capture the lobe of Eames’ ear between his teeth. Every time Eames pushes in, Arthur lets out a little whimper of pleasure, of encouragement. He’s close, so close, but his cock is trapped between his stomach and Eames with not enough friction to bring him to climax.

He reluctantly releases Eames’ ear and pushes him up a little to grab at his own prick. He tugs lightly at it as Eames continues to drive into him. Eames looks down at him fiercely, lost in the pleasure of the moment. It’s a feral look which causes Arthur to bite down on his lip instinctively. Eames snaps his hips harder and wraps his own hand around Arthur’s cock, jerking in sync with Arthur’s own hand.

Eames’ pace falters and the muscles in his face lock up for a brief moment before going slack as he shouts over his orgasm. Arthur can feel the hot spill of Eames’ come inside him. Eames tries to keep the pace, pushing through his oversensitivity to fuck Arthur into orgasm, but he can’t. Arthur stops him with a touch to his thigh. Eames reluctantly pulls out, but grabs Arthur’s wrist, removing Arthur’s grip on his own cock. He bends down and sucks at Arthur again as he slips two fingers into Arthur’s wet asshole.

Arthur moans without reserve, loud and strained and needy. Eames searches inside him, trying to find his prostate, but Arthur is coming from the grip of Eames’ throat and the press of his lips around his cock, before Eames can find it. Arthur shudders as Eames drinks his come and laps at his dick.

He smiles before he comes back up to kiss Arthur, wiping his hand on a scrap of cloth they keep beside the bed. Eames uses the cloth to clean Arthur up, wiping and kissing intermittently. When he’s done he flops down beside Arthur and sighs happily.

“We doing this today? Or are we putting it off again?”

Arthur smiles, and turns to look at Eames. He strokes a hand down Eames’ sweat dampened skin. “No, the weather is good. Today is good.”

It’s been a year since Arthur went looking for Eames. A year since his injury and the strained confession of feelings. It has not been easy. Eames still has a hard time sharing his past, but they work through it. Arthur hasn’t found anything about Eames that he could hate him for, and he doesn’t understand why Eames is still so reluctant to share. But every time Eames does, it gets easier.

It’s amazing too, so amazing, because every day Arthur wakes to Eames by his side. He’s able to reach out and touch, to kiss Eames the way he wants. He can stare all he wants, without having to feel bad about it anymore. They do everything together, and it works, because they work well together.

But a year means that their supplies have run low. The city is picked over and as much as they’ve tried, they haven’t been able to grow enough of a garden to support themselves. They’ve saved as many portable things they can, and have decided to head south. Maybe they will run into populated territory; they don’t know. But at least the weather will be better. They’ll be able to live if they can grow things, or if they can find another city that isn’t empty of food.

Arthur must be making a face again, because Eames reaches over to brush the hair from his eyes. “It’ll be okay,” he says.

“I know,” Arthur answers, and he smiles. He knows everything will be alright.

Fic: The Rain Becomes the Cloud 2/2

2011-09-30T23:30:05Z

Title: The Rain Becomes the Cloud
Author: chaostheorem
Team: Angst
Prompt: Highway
Word Count: 3,401
Rating: PG
Beta: A thousand thanks to eternalsojourn for her help and support
Warnings: Fear of character death; happy ending
Summary: Since Dom and Mal adopted him as a puppy, Arthur has always known what to expect. He never expected Eames, though.

Part One

Dom is hesitant to get another dog, citing a lack of space and time, but Mal convinces him to agree to a week-long trial.

Yusuf drops Eames off on Thursday morning. The first three days go exactly how Arthur imagined they would: lots of taunting, teasing, and superiority on Eames’s part. Arthur only manages to keep himself from constantly growling at Eames because he knows that Eames makes the family happy. Mal smiles every time she sees them together, and Phillipa and James have never laughed so much as when Eames plays with them. Arthur’s only consolation is that he still seems to be Dom’s favorite.

On Sunday, Dom and Mal take them all to the park. Arthur likes the park because there are always new smells to explore and lots of room to run. He’s determined not to let Eames ruin the day.

While the family eats, Arthur lies on his side, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun; Eames sits next to him, too afraid of missing anything to lie down and relax.

“Arthur, Eames. Time for treats,” Dom says. He holds up a plastic bag and shakes it, and Eames bounds onto the blankets, leaping into the middle of the family and making them laugh. Arthur gets up and gracefully makes his way to Dom, waiting for his treat calmly. Arthur likes getting treats in the park not for the treats, but because it means that the family is finished eating and it’s time to play. Dom used to throw sticks or balls for Arthur to fetch, but now Phillipa and James like to play chase with him.

Phillipa takes off running, and Arthur tenses, ready to run after her, when she shouts, “Eames!”

Eames barks once, happily, then takes off after a gleeful Phillipa. James toddles after them, his short little legs working overtime to keep up.

Arthur watches from his place next to Dom and Mal as Eames plays tag with Phillipa and James. Arthur can understand why they prefer Eames, with his soft fur, his exhilarating smell, and his playfulness; still, Arthur can’t deny that it hurts to be cast aside so quickly.

“The children obviously love him,” Mal says from behind Arthur.

“I agree, Mal, but a second dog, especially another large breed, will be a lot of work. This isn’t a decision that we should make without taking everything into consideration.”

“You think too much,” Mal says softly. “The kids like Eames. I like Eames, and I know you like him, too. Even Arthur likes him.” Arthur perks his ears up at this, but Mal takes his objection for agreement. “See? Would you deny Arthur his friend?”

“Stop using Arthur against me,” Dom says. His voice is a growl, and he attacks Mal with his fingers, but he and Mal are smiling and she doesn’t smell frightened, so Arthur allows it.

When Dom and Mal finish playing, Dom is lying on his back and Mal is leaning over him, drawing patterns on his chest. “If we really want Eames,” she says, “the extra work will seem like nothing.”

Dom sighs. “Let’s not decide anything now. I’d rather wait until this week is over and Eames is back with Yusuf so our judgment isn’t clouded. It’s how I ended up married to you, after all. I wasn’t thinking rationally because you were always there, being beautiful and making me crazy. Still are, actually.”

“Such a problem,” Mal says. She leans closer to Dom, kisses him, and their scents change slightly, become stronger and sharper.

Arthur lies down, but before he can get comfortable, he hears a dog growling fiercely. Arthur raises his head and looks toward the sound, spotting a large black and brown dog snarling as James approaches him.

Arthur growls, and Dom and Mal sit up quickly. “James!” Dom and Mal both yell, but James is already reaching out. The dog snaps at James’s outstretched hand; James stumbles back and starts to cry.

Arthur takes off running, moving faster than he ever has. He’s between James and the dog in a matter of seconds, teeth bared and hackles raised, the other dog responding in kind.

“Don’t touch the kid,” Arthur growls. “Don’t even look at him, don’t even smell him.”

The dog doesn’t back down. “If you can’t keep the brat out of my space, I’ll make him stay out.”

Behind him, Arthur can smell Mal and Dom approaching James. He can hear Dom calling to him, wanting him to leave the other dog alone, but Arthur ignores him, their safety much more important.

Arthur and the dog stand off against each other, feinting with tiny lunges as they measure their strengths and weaknesses. His opponent is short yet bulky, but Arthur is fast and strong, and he has no doubt he can take the assailant. Arthur is just about to leap forward when Eames appears next to him.

“You’re out of your depth, mate. Back off,” Eames orders the black dog.

The dog looks at Eames, taking in the short stature and soft fur. “Yeah, you’re real terrifying, goldie,” he says, dismissing Eames and turning his attention back to Arthur. He crouches down as if getting ready to spring, and Arthur tenses in preparation.

Eames growls, his entire demeanor changing in an instant. He lowers his neck and shoulders and bares his teeth; his whole body thrums, as if it’s taking all of his control not to rip the dog apart.

Their opponent freezes, looking back and forth between Arthur and Eames, before backing away slowly. “Can’t take me on your own?” he taunts to Arthur. “Pussy cat.”

Eames steps forward quickly, not stopping until he’s right in front of the dog. “You ever call him that again and I won’t bother stopping him from ripping you limb from limb.” Eames’s voice is low and calm, but the undercurrent of raw power is enough to have the dog backing away even more until he’s far enough away to turn and run.

“Well, that was an interesting experience,” Eames says when he turns back to Arthur, friendly as ever.

“Yeah, it was,” Arthur agrees cautiously. He waits for Eames to tease him about having to come to his rescue, or whatever horrible way Eames will phrase it, except Eames doesn’t.

“James is okay?” Eames asks. “I would have been here sooner, but Phillipa and I were on the other side of the park.”

Arthur looks behind him to where Dom is holding a sniffling James, Mal and Phillipa standing next to them. “He’s fine. Scared, but the dog didn’t get him.”

As if to prove Arthur’s point, James starts wiggling in Dom’s arms. “Wanna swing,” he says happily, the incident with the dog already forgotten.

Dom looks around and spots the swings just a few yards away. “Okay, you can play,” Dom says, bending to set James down, “but stay close to your sister, and don’t try to pet any strange dogs.”

“We’ll be good, Daddy. Promise,” Phillipa says, and James nods in agreement. Phillipa grabs his hand and starts off, stopping to look behind them at Arthur and Eames. “C’mon,” she calls.

Eames takes a few steps forward, but Arthur stays where he is. If Phillipa and James prefer to play with Eames, Arthur isn’t going to intrude. He likes sitting with Dom and Mal, anyway. It’s not as fun as running in the park, but it’s still nice.

Eames turns his head to look at Arthur. “You’re coming, right? These kids are tiring me out. I don’t know how you’ve managed on your own all these years.”

Arthur takes off running, easily overtaking Eames. “It’s because I’m not an old dog, Eames,” he calls back teasingly, and he hears Eames bark good-naturedly in response.

Maybe, just maybe, Eames isn’t so bad after all.

**

After the incident at the park, Eames’s teasing looks less like ridicule and more like him trying to coax Arthur into having fun. When the week is over and Eames is getting ready to head back to Yusuf’s, Arthur finds that he doesn’t want Eames to go.

They’re standing in the parlor of Dom and Mal’s house, Mal and Yusuf talking above them, when Eames says, “It’s been fun, Arthur.” He tries for nonchalance, but he doesn’t quite pull it off. Eames, who has been radiating happiness the entire week, is sad, and though he tries to hide it behind his perked ears and his wagging tail, Arthur can smell it.

“It really has,” Arthur agrees. He’s rewarded by a brief flare of happiness from Eames, but it dies down when Yusuf bends to attach his leash.

“If you feel yourself reverting back to your stick in the mud ways, I’m right across the street. Don’t hesitate to visit.”

Arthur isn’t sure why seeing Eames like this, so cut-off and false, is affecting him so much, but he can’t stand it. “Eames, you’re going to be back here soon enough. You’re practically already part of the family. Dom and Mal just have to make things official.”

“Arthur, that’s –” Eames says, and then he’s licking Arthur’s face.

“Eames, stop,” Arthur says, jerking his head back and out of reach, but it’s more out of shock than any real desire for Eames to stop. If Eames’s cheer is anything to go by, he knows it, too.

“See you soon, darling,” Eames says right before the door closes, Eames on one side and Arthur on the other.

Arthur looks up at Mal and she laughs. “Mon chou, don’t look at me as if I have betrayed you. Let’s go find Dom so you can look pitiful around him. It is he you need to convince.”

Arthur follows Mal down the hall to the study. She knocks, then calls out, “Dom, are you busy?”

“Just finishing up the notes you wanted me to look over. Come on in,” he yells back.

Mal opens the door and lets Arthur in. “You have a visitor. He’s very sad because you sent his friend home today.”

Arthur goes to Dom and rests his head on his knee, looking up at Dom with a sigh. He’s learned over the years that this look can get him almost anything.

“You too, old pal? Everyone’s ganging up against me.” Dom sounds betrayed, but Arthur can tell he’s trying not to smile.

“I will let you get back to my notes,” Mal says from the doorway, “but you keep Arthur’s face in mind when you make your decision about Eames, and know that James and Phillipa and I will be just as sad if you don’t want him.”

As soon as Mal closes the door, Dom leans down so that his face is close to Arthur’s. “Don’t worry, buddy. We’re going to adopt Eames,” he whispers. “I just can’t give in too soon or Mal will think she can do anything.”

Dom goes back to work and Arthur settles beside him, amused that Dom thinks he doesn’t let Mal have her way with everything already.

**

When Dom and Arthur get back from their morning run, Mal is standing on the porch next to a cardboard box. She takes Arthur’s leash from Dom and ties it to the porch railing, but Arthur is too intrigued by the box to care. He sniffs experimentally and is pleased to find that the box smells like Eames.

“Is that Eames’s stuff?” Dom asks, breathing heavily.

Mal nods. “Yusuf said he had one more box. He’s getting it now, and he’ll bring Eames over with it.”

Dom says something, but Arthur is distracted by Yusuf’s door opening across the street. Yusuf comes out first, carrying another box, with Eames right behind him. As soon as Eames catches sight of Arthur, he pushes past Yusuf and starts to run.

“Eames, no!” Yusuf yells.

Mal and Dom stop talking and look towards Eames and Yusuf, adding their own cries a second later.

Arthur looks around, desperately trying to understand why everyone is upset. His view from the porch is limited, but he sees the car heading towards Eames a second before it hits him.

“Eames!” Arthur yells, the sound ripping out of him without thought, but it’s too late. The car catches Eames’s hind legs, spinning Eames around and into the body of the car. The sound of the impact does nothing to drown out Eames’s yelps, initially loud and sharp but now fading into soft whimpers.

Arthur lurches forward only to be yanked back by the leach still tied to the porch. Howling wildly, he lunges again and again, but he only manages to tighten the knot and choke himself. He turns around and pulls backwards, hoping to slip his collar off, but it’s too tight.

Yusuf, Dom, Mal, and the driver of the car are all crowded around Eames. Arthur barks frantically in the hope of gaining the attention of any one of them, but they don’t seem to hear him, too focused on Eames and busy talking among themselves.

Yusuf and Dom turn suddenly, Yusuf running into his house and Dom sprinting into the garage. With them out of the way, Arthur has a clear view of Eames. His back legs are a bloody, twisted mess, but that doesn’t stop Eames from trying to drag himself up with his front legs, whimpering as he does so.

Mal sinks to the ground next to Eames and pulls his head into her lap. “Shhh, mon joli You’re okay. You’re alright. Shhh.” The driver is apologizing profusely above them, but Mal only has eyes for Eames. She pets him gently, calming him enough that he stops struggling against her.

Yusuf runs out of his house with a handful of towels right as the garage door opens and Dom backs the car out of the garage and stops it next to Eames. Dom and Yusuf put Eames in the back, everyone wincing and reassuring Eames when he yelps in pain. When Eames is situated, Yusuf sits next to him with the towels and Dom gets behind the wheel. The driver of the other car says he’ll meet them at the vet’s, and then they’re gone.

Mal stands on the sidewalk for a minute before turning back towards the house. “Oh, Arthur,” she says sadly when she spots him, apparently having forgotten him in the confusion. She sits next to him on the porch and wraps her arms around him, leaning her head against him.

They sit there like that, silently supporting each other, until Mal’s phone rings inside. She runs in to grab it, already talking when she comes back for Arthur.

“- there something else they can do?” she asks as she fumbles with Arthur’s knotted leash one-handedly. “No, of course not. Phillipa and James will understand.”

Arthur whines, terrified for Eames, but Mal pays him no mind as she leads him through the house and into the backyard. She unhooks his leash and then goes back inside, leaving him alone with his worry. Arthur tries to calm down and rest, but he can’t stay still. He wanders around the yard, becoming more and more agitated when he catches whiffs of Eames’s scent here and there.

He’s almost frantic by the time Dom and Yusuf come home, and when he sees that Eames isn’t with them, his panic increases. It’s been hours since the incident and still no one will tell Arthur if Eames is going to be okay. They’ve been talking about money for what seems like forever, and none of them seem to notice his distress.

“Yusuf, it’s fine,” Dom says. “I already told Adam that he didn’t need to worry about the cost, and neither do you.”

“Adam was just driving down the street. It’s not his fault that I didn’t put Eames on a leash, is it?” Yusuf rubs a hand over his eyes. “I just didn’t think he’d need a leash to go across the street.”

Mal reaches across the table and lays a hand on Yusuf’s arm. “These things happen. It’s no one’s fault – just a set of unfortunate circumstances.”

There is the sound of squeaking brakes outside, and Mal straightens up. “That’ll be the children.”

“I’d probably better be going, anyway,” Yusuf says, standing up. “We can talk about this later.”

Mal and Dom wave him off, and Yusuf makes his exit as James and Phillipa come running in.

“Is Eames here?” Phillipa asks, her face bright and hopeful. James stands next to her with an identical look.

Mal kneels down next to them. “Eames isn’t here right now,” she says. “He had an accident this morning so he’s going to stay with his doctor for the next couple days.”

“Is he okay?” Phillipa asks in a small voice.

“You bet he’s okay, sweetie,” Dom says. He bends down and picks her up, settling her on his hip. “You’re going to have to be careful with him for a while because he’s going to be sore, but he’s fine.”

Arthur flops down on the spot as relief floods him and the manic energy that kept him wired all day flees his body. He falls asleep thinking of Eames.

**

Mal clears a space in the living room and brings in a large, firm cushion while Dom goes to pick up Eames. Arthur, too anxious to stay in one place, follows Mal like a shadow, but he runs for the garage the second he hears the door opening.

Arthur wags his tail as soon as he sees Eames, but his happiness doesn’t last long. Eames looks almost lifeless in Dom’s arms; his limbs are limp and his eyes are open but unfocused. Dom sets Eames down as carefully as possible, but that doesn’t stop Eames from yelping when his legs touch the cushion.

“The vet said that he shouldn’t feel anything,” Dom says, gesturing to Eames, “but he may yelp or whimper because of the pain medication. She said that it’ll confuse him for a while and may make him seem depressed.”

“Oh, Eames,” Mal says in sympathy. She sits next to him and pets his head. “You’re being such a good boy, mon joli.”

Dom and Mal sit with Eames until he falls asleep. Arthur watches Eames from his spot across the room, content just to know that Eames is safe, when Eames starts whimpering in his sleep. He approaches Eames’s bed slowly, ready to back away if Eames doesn’t want him around. “Eames?” he asks hesitantly.

Eames opens his eyes slowly. “Arthur,” he says, voice tired but happy. “Did you miss me?”

Arthur huffs in response, a little more confident now that he knows Eames is actually okay. “I still can’t believe you got hit by a car,” he says, incredulous.

“It wasn’t my intention, I assure you. I promise not to do it again.”

“Make sure you don’t.” Arthur hesitates. “I have something for you,” he says.

“Yeah?”

Arthur nods. “Hang on. I’ve got it here.” Arthur gets the bone he had stashed in the corner earlier and lays it next to Eames, nudging it closer with his nose. “It always makes me feel better,” he says in way of explanation.

“Thanks, Arthur,” Eames says, but he doesn’t move.

“Don’t you want it?” Arthur asks, suddenly unsure.

“I do,” Eames says. “I really appreciate it. It’s just…I’m really tired, and I can’t feel my body right now. Maybe later?”

Arthur feels a rush of affection for Eames. “It’s okay. Whatever you want.” He leans in and nuzzles Eames. “Go to sleep.”

“Stay with me?” Eames asks.

“Of course,” Arthur says. He circles behind Eames, lying down as close as he can without hurting Eames and staying there when Eames falls asleep.

“Dom,” Mal calls quietly when she comes back. “You must come see this.”

“What is it?” Dom asks from the hallway.

Mal points to Arthur and Eames when Dom comes in. “You were so worried they wouldn’t get along. Look at them now.”

“Should Arthur be that close?” Dom asks, disregarding Mal’s comment.

“He’s fine,” Mal says exasperatedly. “Besides, good luck trying to make him move.”

“They do look comfortable together,” Dom agrees. “They make a good pair.”

Arthur feels a rush of pride at Dom’s words. He shifts closer to Eames, resting his head on Eames’s neck, and drifts off to sleep surrounded by Eames’s comforting scent.

Fic: Hard Limits

2011-09-27T05:30:05Z

Title: Hard Limits
Author: HeliosHyperion
Team: ROMANCE
Prompt: Overwhelmed
Word count: 1,707
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Piercing, blood play, nipple play

The previous fics are:
Oh, Arthur, I never thought I’d ever see you speechless
You should see the other guy
Fight Night
Reversal
Relationship Negotations
Heat

Deep breath, Arthur, and hold it.

Fic: But How Do We Tell Dom?

2011-09-20T14:50:43Z

Title: But How Do We Tell Dom?
Author: HeliosHyperion
Team: ROMANCE
Prompt: Picture
Word count: 1,733
Rating: PG
Warnings: none

Don't Come to Paris
Arthur's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
The Teenage Queen, the Loaded Gun
Pay My Respects to Grace and Virtue
BYOB and Other Life Lessons

It's not like you're breaking up with him, Arthur.

Fic: All is Violent, All is Bright 10/11

2011-09-19T15:25:34Z

Title: All is Violent, All is Bright 10/11
Author: sparrow_hubris
Team: ANGST
Prompt: innocence
Word count: 4,336 this part
Rating: PG-13 - NC-17 (This part R)
Warnings: Underage 15/17, Apocalypse & general destruction, Violence (This part),
Mentions of death, violence towards animals (hunting: prev parts )
Betas: night_reveals
Notes: It's done guys! The final part is written and will be posted shortly!
Summary: Apocalypse AU / a.k.a bb!Survival / a.k.a. cockblockalypse!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
_______

Three days in the city and Arthur hasn’t seen a trace of Eames. He knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, but he had to hope that he would find some sign of Eames somewhere. He tried to remember any of the small things Eames had been honest about, if he had been honest about anything

The walk past the burned-out oil distillery brings back memories of their first days together. He thought he had hated Eames then, that Eames was a nuisance. He remembers how beautiful Eames had looked, lit by the bright, burning orange glow, the angles of his face accented with dancing shadows. Had Arthur known that at the time and chose not to think about it? Did he think Eames was beautiful that day?

Arthur wanders Dunbar, checking houses idly. He thinks Eames mentioned that his boss lived in this area, and the neighborhood is nice. Homes like this always had food, or were built well enough to still be intact. There were signs of raiding, which isn’t surprising, but Arthur thinks it would be a good place to bunker down in the burned-out city.

The neighborhood will take days to search. He doesn’t know if it is the truth, that Eames would go to his boss’ house. He has to start somewhere, though. He’s making his way through Memorial Park which is deserted and blanketed in brown grass, probably from not being watered, when the hairs on his neck stand on end. Someone is following him.

He angles to the right and makes his way to an abandoned preschool. It’s eerie without kids playing and adults hovering nearby to wrangle them. It should give him cover though. He can use it as an obstacle, put it between him and whoever is following him. As he walks, he casually shifts his rifle into a better firing position. He doesn’t want to alert his tail.

He’s made it to the trees, near the road and close to the school, when a kid steps out from behind the building, pointing a shotgun directly at his chest. Arthur stops in his tracks, realizing he’s raised his own gun instinctively. The kid is skinny, smaller than Arthur, but not by much. Arthur thinks he could take him in a fight, not that he’d get the chance with guns already involved. They stare each other down.

“The pack,” the kids says, crystal eyes shimmering in the soft, overcast light. He looks like he’s about to cry, but his face is stony, angles gaunt because he’s too skinny.

I wonder how he’s survived, Arthur thinks. He nods his head no. The kid doesn’t look like he has it in him to shoot and Arthur is not about to give up any supplies if he doesn’t have to. The kid tenses, eyebrows knitting together in frustration.

“I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.” The kid is trying to sound intimidating but failing.

Arthur stares, daring the kid to shoot. He’s not certain the kid is bluffing, but he has just as much a chance at taking the boy out if it comes to it. He’s focused, trying to urge the boy to back down. They can end this as a draw, both go their own ways. Arthur doesn’t want to kill anyone.

Arthur is so focused he doesn’t sense it coming. The blow sends pain shooting through his shoulder blades and he stumbles forward. He can’t recover quickly enough to protect himself when his legs are swept out from under him and he finds himself face first on the dead grass. Dirt gets into his mouth.

He reaches for his gun but before he can grab it someone kicks him in the ribs, hard. It’s enough to make Arthur yelp in pain and double in on himself. His lungs contract fitfully and he can’t breath. He tries again to get his gun, but the boot strikes him a second time.

Arthur’s vision goes black and starry. His eyes are bleary with tears when the fog fades, and what he sees when his vision clears doesn’t makes sense. The attack has stopped and there is a flurry of movement around him. Someone is screaming, but the words don’t make any sense through his haze of agony.

“Fuck off,” someone growls, and it sounds distinctly like Eames.

Arthur looks up and sees that the boy with the gun is still there, but has moved to the commotion. There is someone sprawled on the ground and Eames is standing over him with his rifle aimed at their head. Time seems to stand still as Arthur tries to make sense of what is going on.

Whimpering catches his attention and he looks to the side to see a young girl clutching herself, tears streaked down her pale face. The situation is unreal, like a bad dream. Maybe Arthur is dreaming, because Eames is there. But the pain reminds him that this is reality. Fighting the urge to cough he tries to assess the situation. When he looks up his stomach drops.

He can see it, the look in Eames’ eyes. The darkness that Arthur has seen surface before is full blown and murderous. A chill runs down his spine, which sends a sharp shock of pain shooting through his lungs.

Eames will kill this kid.

“Eames,” Arthur gasps out. “Eames, don’t!”

Arthur’s seen Eames kill now: rabbits, opossum, deer. This is different. Eames hand is steady, not tremble of trepidation as he aims his gun.

The girl is sobbing, tears streaming down her reddened cheeks and fear in her eyes. They’re only kids too; she’s younger than the other two. “Dom,” she says. “Dom, let’s go. Dom, c’mon!”

“Shut up, Ari,” the blond growls.

Eames hasn’t lowered his gun, but the intensity of his stare is cracking as time drags on. He glances worriedly back towards where Arthur is huddled on the ground. Arthur catches his eyes. He shakes his head, a vigorous no, willing Eames to back off.

The adrenaline of the fight is wearing off, the pain increasing. Arthur might have a broken rib; it’s at least bruised. The endorphins pumping through his body from the injury won’t last long. They need to get back to camp before he becomes completely immobile.

“Eames, please,” Arthur begs.

Eames’ gaze softens and his brows furrow, worried but less angry. He lowers his rifle slightly and steps back, closer to Arthur. The move puts him farther away from the captured pack. It looks like it physically pains Eames to back away, to give any room for the others to get the upper hand.

The other boy, the brunette with the pistol, is shaking and still pointing the muzzle directly at Eames. He seems unwilling to lower it, eyes darting between the blond and Eames in fear. The girl tries to calm him down.

“Robbie. Robbie, don’t. Let’s go.”

She places her hand on the muzzle of the pistol, lowering it for him. The kid is still shaking, obviously unsure of what to do. He seems hesitant to shoot, but nervous enough to pull the trigger. Eames eyes the blond, seeming to decide whether to risk one last fight for the pack or to come to Arthur’s aid.

After a long, tense moment he backs farther away from the trio. Dom scrambles to his feet, dragging Arthur’s pack with him. He backs tentatively away, still afraid that Eames will shoot him, to join the other two. The girl grabs Robbie’s wrists, pulling him away. They all back up until they are a reasonably safe distance away. Then they sprint off.

Arthur has lost the food he gathered and a good carrying bag, but at least he’s alive. At least Eames is alive, and here. That thought is nearly overwhelming. He wanted to find Eames, had tried so hard, and as soon as he needed him Eames had appeared. It was as if Eames had been watching him the entire time.

Eames doesn’t relax until the trio is out of sight. When he finally lowers his gun, he turns to Arthur, chewing on his bottom lip nervously. There are bags under Eames’ eyes, like he hasn’t been sleeping well, and the distressed expression mars the features of his face.

“You alright?” Eames asks as he crouches down. The hand he places on Arthur’s shoulder is warm. Arthur nods, but his short, gasping breaths betray his injuries. Eames’ frown deepens. “Come one, lets get you up,” he says as he slides an arm under Arthur’s and gently lifts him to his feet.

They’ve walked for blocks silently before Arthur finally speaks. “Where are we going?” he asks.

“Back to camp,” Eames replies.

“I came to find you,” Arthur admits.

Eames expression is guarded as Arthur looks at him, fish-eyed from proximity with his arm wrapped tightly around Eames’ neck. The distortion makes the expression darker somehow and Arthur buries his face into Eames shoulder to block it out. He tries not to focus on the pain.

More time passes in silence, save for Arthur’s labored breathing. It takes twice the usual amount of time to make it to the bridge. The sun is already setting by the time they’ve crossed.

“We have to stop.” Arthur pleads, grimacing in pain. The ache has grown steadily as they made their way through the city.

“Can’t do that,” Eames says. “We won’t make it back before dark and we can’t camp here. I don’t want to be out longer than we have to, not with you injured.”

Arthur nods in understanding. It’s dangerous for them here. But his lungs burn; it takes so much effort to walk. “Thank you,” he whispers.

“Mmmm?” Eames hums.

“For saving my life. Where did you come from anyway?”

Eames looks away sheepishly. He works his bottom lip with his teeth for a moment before turning back. “I was tailing you.”

Arthur nods. For some reason that makes perfect sense. Eames had first found Arthur by doing the same thing. Eames shifts his weight to hitch Arthur higher and the movement makes him flinch.

“Sorry,” Eames says.

Hours later they finally make to their camp. Eames deposits Arthur on the bed as gently as possible then goes to grab some water. Arthur takes the offered cup thankfully when Eames holds it out. Arthur is exhausted, but he’s been dying to talk to Eames for so long. He doesn’t know where to start.

He’s in too much discomfort to really focus on a conversation anyway. Eames finishes the fire and comes to sit next to him in the bed, crossing his legs and gently moving Arthur’s head onto his lap. Puzzled, Arthur looks where Eames face is tipped down over him.

“How are you feeling?” Eames asks as he threads his fingers through Arthur’s hair lightly. It’s so gentle, so unlike any way Eames has touched him before. Arthur closes his eyes as Eames pets his hair.

“Hurts,” Arthur whispers.

“Can you breathe okay? It’s not sharp inside, is it? Doesn’t feel like it’s stabbing?” Eames face distorts in worry again. It looks extremely odd from Arthur’s upside-down position.

Arthur shakes his head no. It extremely painful but it’s stretched across his ribs, not sharp. Eames nods sucks his lip between his teeth. “Good. He got you good, hopefully your ribs are just bruised. They could be broken, but if there’s no sharp pain then at least nothing is going into your lungs.”

“You sound like you know from experience.”

Eames expression darkens again and he looks away. “I do,” he says with the kind of finality that leaves no room for questions. Arthur doesn’t push. Eames continues to run his fingers through Arthur’s hair as Arthur drifts into fitful sleep, exhausted from the journey.

He doesn’t sleep well, unable to get comfortable in any position. He sleeps a little, but ends up floating in and out of a semi-lucid state. Eames is there every time he wakes, getting him water, and playing with his hair until he falls back asleep. Finally, towards morning, he’s able to sleep steadily.

Waking up to the smell of cooking food is glorious. Arthur attempts to stretch, forgetting his injury for a moment. He gasps when his ribs flare with pain.

“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t move, okay? I’ll help you up.” Eames is at his side before he knows it, with his palms underneath Arthur’s shoulders to help lift him. Arthur grits his teeth and blinks his watery eyes. Eames runs a hand down his back, avoiding the side where his was kicked. If Arthur could press into the touch he would. It feels perfect.

Eames moves away too quickly, to stir the cooking food before it burns. “You’re going to be useless for at least a week or two. Breathing is going to be hard for a few days, movement, sleeping. But you’ll loosen up soon. You just won’t be able to do any hard labor. No lifting.”

Arthur groans. He hates being useless. He hates staying still.

Eames grins at him, a spoon help up in his hand as he crouches by the fire. “Try not to be a baby about it, yeah? I know how you get cooped up, but there’s nothing to be done about it, except let yourself recover.” He points the spoon accusingly towards Arthur before using it to stir the food again.

“Who died and made you doctor?” Arthur jokes.

“You, nearly. Anyway, I wish we had ice, but nothing can be done about that. You have to take deep breaths every once in a while, to get air into your lungs.”

Arthur scowls at the idea. The short breaths he is taking now hurt enough. He can’t imagine trying to expand his lungs beyond that. He tries a bigger breath, just to test it out, and grimaces from the tight pull of sore muscle over his bruised bones.

“I know it sounds unappealing, but you’ll catch pneumonia otherwise, and we don’t have the meds for that.”

Arthur nods his understanding. Eames’ extensive knowledge about the nature of ribcage injuries has him curious. He wants to ask about it, but remembers the look Eames had last night. For the time being he’s just happy Eames is using the word we, like he still lives here. It makes Arthur hope that Eames will stay.

Eames walks over with the finished breakfast and hands Arthur a bowl. Swallowing isn’t he easiest task either. Neither is changing, or walking too far, or pissing, or even sitting for that matter. Everything hurts.

Eames helps as much as he can, but even he can’t help keep Arthur from accidentally bumping into things, or stretching too far, or laughing. In fact, Eames is the cause of most of the laughing. At least he has the good sense to feel bad about it for a moment when Arthur whines.

They fall into a new routine of Eames taking care of Arthur. He goes off to check the traps, but only every other day. He cooks, gathers water, and cleans. He helps Arthur out of bed, helps him dress, and helps him walk to relieve himself. Arthur’s not actually an invalid though, so he doesn’t let Eames help him piss or anything, though Eames probably would if he had to. It makes Arthur feel a strange mix of joy and annoyance. He hates being helpless, but he kind of likes the attention.

It’s easy between them when they aren’t fighting, and Arthur doesn’t know why he tried so hard to push Eames away. Eames wouldn’t do any of this if he didn’t care. Arthur regrets making Eames upset. He didn’t deserve that, not even for keeping his past hidden.

But Eames’ past still bothers Arthur a lot. Everything he learns about Eames makes him want to know more. He’s seen the violence held inside of him. Eames has obviously been in some rough situations. Arthur just wants to know. He wants to understand.

They’re sitting together by the fire one night when Arthur finally decides to be straightforward with Eames. “Tell me something true,’ Arthur says. Eames is starting a fire and when he looks up, his eyes shine within the dark shadows under his brow. Arthur can see the trepidation behind them, the start of a lie forming. “Something important,” Arthur clarifies. “I don’t really know anything about you.”

Eames hesitates. Maybe Arthur is is asking too much to ask too soon. But Eames scrapes his thumbnail along his lip nervously and starts to speak.

“I wasn’t exactly a good person, Arthur.”

“I know. You told me about running away. You said you lived and stole, stuff like that. I got that you were kind of a bad boy.”

“No, that’s not what I’m getting at,” Eames pauses, gathering his words. “I ran with a bad crowd. I … did things.”

“Like what?”

“You know how I told you I was out of town on the day of the blast?”

Arthur nods. Eames continues, “I was delivering drugs to a client for my boss.”

“So you were an actual criminal?”

Eames nods solemnly. Arthur mulls that over in his head, trying to process the information. Then he remembers the fight, remembers the way Eames looked at that blond kid on the ground.

“You would have killed that kid, wouldn’t you?” He asks and searches Eames eyes, pleading for honesty.

Eames hold his gaze for a moment before dropping his eyes to the ground and nodding. “They hurt you,” he whispers. His foot taps a nervous rhythm in the dirt and he shuffles something through his fingers. Arthur can’t figure out what it is. Eames looks back up with the most open expression Arthur has ever seen from him. He looks so worried and Arthur realizes that he’s waiting for something. Then it hits him: Eames is waiting for Arthur to reject him.

“Hey, hey,” he says as he grabs Eames’ hand in his own, stilling the movement. Eames clutches at whatever he was playing with. “Thank you.” Eames doesn’t relax, so Arthur tries again. “Eames, thank you. You protected me.”

“I never wanted you to know me like that, you know.”

“Like what?”

Eames doesn’t answer directly but continues on, “I had a fresh start when I met you. You didn’t know anything about me, and I didn’t have to be judged by what I used to do.”

Arthur wants to say that he wouldn't have judged Eames, but he doesn’t. He didn’t even want to deal with Eames at first, he doesn’t know how he would have reacted early on.

“I don’t care what you did, Eames. It can’t be bad enough to make me not care about you, to not be your friend.”

Eames looks at him seriously again, weighing Arthur’s words. Arthur gives him the most sincere look he can manage. Eames bursts into laughter.

“That is not a good look for you, mate.”

Arthur smiles automatically, reacting to the grin plastered on Eames’ face. “What? I’m trying to be serious here!”

“You look constipated.”

“I’d punch you in the arm if it wouldn’t hurt me more at this point.”

“I am truly terrified of your recovery if you’re going to threaten me with physical violence every time I make fun of you.”

A bitter thought flits through Arthur’s head. That’s the only way I will get to touch you once I’m not injured anymore. Eames is being affectionate while Arthur is helpless, but he knows that won’t last. Eames picks up on the shift in mood immediately.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Arthur lies and looks away. Eames flicks his ear.

“None of that, mate. It’s honesty hour. What’s wrong?”

Arthur hesitates, looking down at his lap, then he speaks quietly. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”

“What do you mean?”

Arthur frowns. “You told me not to touch you.” Eames looks horrified and Arthur scrambles. “I mean, I can stop touching you and not be an asshole about it. I was being a dick, and I promise I can stop. I’m just … I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I don’t want you to leave again.”

“Woah, Arthur, calm down,” Eames says, grabbing Arthur’s head between his hands. Arthur snaps his mouth shut. “I never wanted you to stop touching me.”

“But you said.”

“That’s not what I meant, mate.”

Arthur scowls in confusion and jerks his head away from Eames’ hold. “What did you mean then?” They sit in silence for a few minutes, while Eames gathers his thoughts. What he says next is not anything Arthur expected.

“I like you, Arthur.”

Arthur sits dumbly, staring at Eames in shock. “What?”

“I like you, and I didn’t … I didn’t want you to like me.”

“What?” Arthur says again.

“I thought I was effecting you, even though I didn’t it to be like that. I’m not good for anyone. I have a lot of shit issues and you are all I have. I don’t want to lose you because you find out that I’m not what you want.”

Arthur doesn’t know what to make of any of this. How could he not like Eames? Eames is everything to him. The only thing that’s come between them so far is Eames’ past and Arthur’s feelings.

“You know, you never let me decide that for myself. You never told me anything.”

Eames frowns and seems to get upset. He’s still holding onto his secrets, guarding himself from Arthur. Or he thinks he’s guarding Arthur from him. “There is nothing good about my past, okay? I’m not my past,” he hisses. “There’s nothing that relates to now. There’s nothing that relates to you, or us, or anything anymore.”

“Eames. There won’t be an us if you aren’t honest with me. This … all this will get worse, and I’ll end up hating you anyway.”

Eames looks at him like Arthur has wounded him, like the words have left him open and raw. The anger, the fear, is just below the surface and Arthur wants to tear it out and release it into the wind.

“Maybe you should hate me,” Eames says.

“Fuck that Eames!” Arthur yells, then flinches because his ribs can’t take the effort. With a lower voice he continues, “what makes you think like that? You saved me. We’ve been living together for months. I don’t hate you, and I don’t think I can.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Because you don’t let me!”

They’re at a stalemate. It’s the same one they’ve been at before, but now their entire future together is on the line. They can’t go back from here. Arthur can’t pretend he doesn’t want more from Eames, and Eames can’t pretend he doesn’t notice.

Eames wants me, he said so himself, Arthur thinks. That’s the hope he has to hang onto. He swallows the thick lump in his throat and decides that he’s going to be the one who has to do something. Eames will continue to hide from him if he doesn’t. Arthur pushes himself from sitting and kneels in front of Eames. Eames looks startled by the move.

Arthur cups his hands around Eames’ face and slowly presses a kiss to Eames’ lips. When he pulls away he looks squarely into Eames’ eyes. “We can’t do this anymore,” he says. “I want you. I want you to stay with me. But you can’t be here if you aren’t honest with me. We can’t work as friends, or as anything else, if you hide everything from me.”

That’s all Arthur can say. He can’t promise that things will work if Eames is honest. But he sure as hell knows it won’t if Eames isn’t. He also doesn’t know what will happen to them in the future either. But he wants to try. “Please,” he whispers.

Eames sighs into Arthur’s hands. He looks like he wants to run away, but then Arthur sees something change in Eames’ eyes. A hand wraps around the back of Arthur’s head. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll try.” Then Eames draws him closer, pressing their lips together again.

Arthur is overwhelmed because this is what he’s been wanting ever since the first time he kissed Eames. He’s so desperate for it, for more, for everything, that he presses into the kiss harder. Arthur runs his tongue along the seam of Eames’ lips and Eames parts them for him. Eames groans at the intrusion and it stirs something in Arthur. He demands more, stealing Eames’ breaths and clutching at his shoulders. Eames pulls away, gently holding Arthur back as to not hurt his ribs.

“Stop,” he says. “We can’t do this.”

Arthur whimpers, heartbroken at the comment.

“Shhh, no. I mean … I want to Arthur. But I don’t think I can control myself if we do this, and you’re injured. We can’t do this now.”

Eames runs the pad of his thumb along Arthur’s lip; it’s an intimate, tender gesture. Arthur wants to anyway, though he knows it is a bad idea. Finally he nods. It’s the smart thing to do, to wait.

“Why don’t we go to bed, yeah?” Eames says.

They undress, Arthur carefully with Eames’ help, and climb underneath the covers before the chill night air can seep into their skin. Arthur presses himself into Eames’ arms, his nose buried in Eames’ neck. He strokes a hand over Eames’ side, reveling in the smell of him as Eames cards a hand through his hair.

It takes all the willpower Arthur has to keep the kisses light, to keep from doing something stupid and hurting himself more. But it feels so good to be able to finally touch Eames how he wants to. They finally drift off to sleep after hours of kissing lazily, stopping every once in a while before it can go farther. Despite his sore ribs, it’s the best night of sleep Arthur has had in a very long time.

part 11

FIC: Battaglia Con Brio, Part 4/4

2011-09-18T06:01:44Z

Title: Battaglia Con Brio (4/4)
Author: ladderax
Word Count: ~8,000 this part; roughly 35,000 over all
Team: Angst(y romance)
Prompts: Ghost, Smile, Ring, Balcony, Whiskey and Rum, Completion
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Sex?
Summary: Arthur finds what he's good at. Eames finds Arthur. Weddings (not Eames's and Arthur's), sex, and operas.
Beta: eternalsojourn
Notes: Title is an Italian musical term meaning “battle, with spirit”.

Part 3

“Are you sure it’s necessary to dismiss us?” Christina paced back and forth in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb, her face twisted in sadness.

“I’m sorry, Christina, but it is.” Arthur layered his books in a trunk, not pausing to look at the titles or run his fingers over the smooth leather bindings. At that moment books only seemed like an inconvenience, like heavy, dusty bricks one nevertheless felt guilty for abandoning on the roadside. “I’ve decided it’s time for me to live a simpler life. And yes, you may keep the parrot.”

Christina glanced over at the brass cage where a brilliant green bird fidgeted on its perch. Her face lit up, and she coughed to restore her solemnity.

“I think Anton was crying earlier,” she confided. “He can’t even talk to you, he’s so terribly sad.”

Right on cue, Arthur heard Anton’s footsteps rattling the stairs.

“Sir, Herr Cobb is here to see you,” he called from the top of the stairs. It was unlike Anton not to come into a room before making an announcement.

Arthur breathed into his fist. “Tell him I’m not home.”

“He said he’d be willing to wait as long as he had to.”

Arthur sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I’ll be down in a moment. Please stay up here, both of you.”

Cobb would probably challenge him to a duel. Or he would kill him on the spot. Either way, Arthur knew he deserved it. He walked down the stairs feeling like a man about to face death. But all he could think about was the ferret in the piano, trapped and boggled in its little black jacket. Grabbing it by the scruff and holding it against his chest to keep it calm. If only our problems were as small as being trapped in a piano, he thought, slowly lowering his foot onto the final step. If only they could be solved by a hand on the neck.

“Herr Cobb,” Arthur greeted him. He was sitting on one of the few chairs that had not yet been sent away. His arm was draped over the chair’s arm, and he looked deep in thought.

“Arthur, how long have we known each other?” Cobb turned his head.

“I did not think that I was someone you wanted to know any longer,” said Arthur.

“I am angry,” Cobb admitted. “After the performance, I wanted to slit your throat. All those years I blamed myself for her death, for why she lost the will to live. And to think that you might have helped her—“

“I tried,” said Arthur. “That was what I was trying to do in the beginning. And then I couldn’t give it up. I was finally worth something.”

“I don’t know if anything would have saved her,” Cobb said finally. “But I didn’t support her. Maybe if I’d supported her composing things would have gone differently.” Arthur saw that Cobb was rubbing a small glinting object between his thumb and forefinger, staring at it as if it were an indecipherable letter.

Arthur didn’t know how to respond.

“I suppose we should thank Eames for making me come out with the truth, then,” Arthur smiled weakly.

“Why Eames?” Cobb frowned.

“Eames read my diaries,” Arthur said. “He broke into my cabinet and read my diaries. And in them I confessed my sin. I considered burning it after I wrote it down, but I didn’t feel I deserved to forget. And I drew a picture of her—I had so many dreams about her, and so many things reminded me all the time. So I have reason to believe that he hired the woman to torment me so that I’d be reminded of my guilt.”

Cobb looked down at his knees and shook his head. From what Arthur could see of his face from that angle, he looked nearly amused. “My God, you’re paranoid. Eames had nothing to do with it.”

“What?” Arthur asked.

“I know that Eames had nothing to do with it. Because I hired her.”

Arthur was so taken aback that words would not form.

“I saw her at a tavern one day, and she looked so much like Mal it was as if--it was as if she were still alive. I could convince myself for a moment that I had not missed my chance to be a better husband. So I paid her a little money to come and sit at rehearsals, and to be near me at parties. To help me pretend.” Cobb’s eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “I think you ought to forgive Eames, Arthur. He has a great deal of affection for you, despite the sadness you’ve caused him.”

Arthur draped his arms over the back of a chair and hung his head. “Surely it’s just pity.”

“I had her wear this,” Cobb said softly, uncurling his hand to reveal the shining object fully. “I had the woman who was pretending to be my wife wear the ring belonging to my real wife.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Arthur stammered, unsure of the proper response. He could hear Anton bellowing “SHUT YOUR BLOODY MOUTH!” to someone or something upstairs.

“What I am saying,” Cobb continued, “is that we have both done terrible, selfish things. We will probably continue to do terrible, selfish things all our lives. It’s the natural condition of humankind. I thought I could allow myself to try to live in ignorance of my failures for a time. But that night, when you confessed, I realized the hollowness of what I was trying to do. She was gone. Anyone else could only be a pale imitation. And leaving all of this behind will not change your past either. You do have friends here, Arthur.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Arthur said stiffly.

“Stay for the wedding at least.” Arthur could tell from Cobb’s tone that he would brook no dissent.

Arthur laughed bitterly. “Surely they all think I am a liar and a fraud. I passed Yusuf in the street the other day. He did not acknowledge me. I have been laughed at and hissed at in public. Someone had a talking parrot delivered here that said ‘I’m a parrot too! But I’m honest!’ It’s still upstairs.”

Cobb smiled. “You are a liar and a fraud. But they’ll get over it soon enough. And Eames—I don’t believe he pities you. He treasures your friendship and your regard. He loves you.”

“I don’t—“

“Perhaps you’re right,” Cobb murmured. “Perhaps you’re not worthy. But whether or not you are worthy, it is not for you to disallow someone from loving you.” Arthur noticed that Cobb had slid the delicate filigreed ring onto the ringfinger that wore its twin and was twisting it around the finger’s first joint. “That is not your decision to make.”

§

And so it was that Arthur, in his second-finest jacket, attended Yusuf and Ariadne’s wedding on a clear November day. Though they’d been scheduled to marry in August, they’d postponed the wedding these few months, though neither Yusuf nor Ariadne had been straightforward in telling Arthur why.

A modest number of guests filled the pews. One of the front benches was occupied by Ariadne’s brothers and their wives, her parents being long dead and her sisters accompanying her in the bridal party. Yusuf’s widowed father, a middle-class bookbinder from Wagenheim, sat tapping his thumbs together on the opposite bench. Cobb was in attendance--minus the ghost of his wife, Arthur was pleased to note—and Arthur took his seat next to Cobb’s daughter, Philippa, who had grown taller and less blonde since Arthur had last seen her. Arthur took her hand in greeting. She had long fingers, he noticed. A pianist’s fingers. It would not do to have her learn on a piano that sounded as if its notes were struggling feebly to shout through fathoms of heavy water.

Yusuf, at the altar before the priest, seemed uncertain where he should be looking, so he craned his neck and stared up at the ceiling. He glanced at the door once or twice, but just as quickly glanced away, as if afraid too much expectation would bring about disappointment. Or perhaps he felt that not being disappointed would be almost as frightening—hoped for, longed for, yes, but still terrifying, still sending through the body that tremulous feeling that seeing the object of one’s desires might actually literally destroy one, body and mind.

Arthur could understand that sentiment.

Arthur was not surprised to see Eames playing a sprightly toccata on the organ, dressed in a hyacinth-purple frock coat, looking unusually somber from behind at least. Arthur was surprised, however, to see a full choir clad in gold and white standing as still as humanly possible, like lanterns poked at by the lightest breeze. Choirs did not usually sing at the weddings of the middle and lower classes. They were reserved for the gentry and the nobility, the sorts of people for whom symphonies were named.

He did not have the opportunity to dwell on this mystery for long. The doors split and Ariadne entered, shadowed by attendants of various ages and sizes, unmarried girls all. Two he recognized as her sisters; they shared the same slight build and features that translated well to portraiture. Ariadne’s eyes were wide in the flickering bronze candlelight. She looked nervous, one hand moving up and down on her diaphragm to remind her to breathe. Arthur thought she looked lovely, her cheeks rouged and her hair done up in ringlets. Her dress, too, was splendid, cream with subtle mint-green needlework scrolls running down the sides of the skirt which, as per the latest style, was as wide as the average kitchen door. As Arthur remembered, Ariadne had never been much for needlework (she much preferred to paint). He wondered who had helped her.

As she began her walk toward the altar, Eames lifted his hands from the organ for a moment, and she stopped in her tracks, as if the music were animating her. He touched his hands to the keys once more, creating dense, growling chords, practically the diametrical opposite of the hopscotching piece he’d been playing before. Again she began to glide forward. After four bars, the choir added their voices to the strident welter:

I am a sinner and my soul is a roving shadow of hell.
I have tried to fold myself back into darkness
But darkness spat me back onto the earth.
And now a window opens like the wings of a hawk.
I shrink from its fearsome light,
But its cleanness strikes with unerring claws
That have lifted so many lowly creatures toward the sun
And I have not the speed or cunning
To run from you who have opened love before me.

At first Arthur did not recognize the words. They sounded deeply, unnervingly familiar, but he could not place them. Then they found a place in his mind. He remembered them.

He remembered writing them.

Nearly two years ago, late December, brown ink in a burgundy notebook. They had just buried Mal, and no sooner was her casket lowered into the ground and the first shovels of dirt spooned into the lightless black earth-door than the snow had begun to fall, her grave erased by a gentle floury softness. When Arthur had walked by the churchyard he could almost allow himself to forget, pretend that no one was buried there but the long-dead and nameless. And that night he and Robert had made love in a clean, warm room. And Arthur, sitting awake, watching the whale-oil flames reveal the relaxed tenderness on his lover’s sleeping face, had nearly, nearly persuaded himself that he could love and be loved without feeling like an impostor whose love meant less than a scrap of moldy bread.

The snow melted.

Arthur’s mind was absent throughout the brief ceremony, the priest admonishing Yusuf and Ariadne to give each other mutual society, help, and comfort, both in prosperity and in adversity. He was glad for them, but his embarrassment at hearing those words of his, which were never meant to be spoken aloud, surrounded his gladness in a noxious fog. That was all he could bring himself to feel. Embarrassed. He felt he had vomited the contents of his heart before a crowd once again; the difference this time was that he had not been prepared, and that he had not felt a need to confess these particular secrets.

It didn’t matter that the music was darkly magnificent and entirely new for Eames, whose tone had until now usually contained a note of nimble mockery. It didn’t matter that the words locked into the music as if they were warp and weft of a single fine sheet of linen.

It didn’t matter—or it barely mattered—that Eames had elevated Arthur’s words, words to which Arthur had barely given a second glance, to the level of art.

It was not until Eames began to play the recessional that Arthur realized he had not been paying attention as the couple exchanged vows. Arthur tried to drown out the words the choir was singing as he followed the bride and groom and their companions out of the church. Through the spaces between the people he caught glimpses of the newly wedded couple arm in arm. Their faces shone with happiness. As per tradition, some of the young men in the groom’s party tried to steal the bride away, but Ariadne elbowed them--from the looks on their faces it seemed to genuinely hurt--and clung more tightly to her husband.

“Did you know about this? What Eames was planning to do?” he asked Cobb, who carried his two-year-old son, James, on his hip and led Phillippa by the hand.

“I didn’t,” Cobb responded casually. Arthur knew he was lying.

“And you thought it would be a good idea to allow him to go ahead with it.”

Cobb looked Arthur in the eye as daylight hit them. “It was a piece of such brilliance, Arthur, that frankly I didn’t care where it had come from. He could’ve gotten the words and music from killing the Emperor’s stallions and draining their blood and I wouldn’t have cared.”

Arthur glared at him incredulously. “Ever the bloody opportunist.”

Cobb covered James’s ear with his free hand. “You watch your language around my children.”

Arthur stepped into his carriage, where Anton awaited him, and they followed the line of carriages heading to the reception at Cobb’s home.

When they arrived, Arthur was surprised and pleased to find that someone had given the place a thorough scrubbing. It no longer smelled of dust and mold, and Arthur’s nose did not immediately twitch in a prelude to a sneeze the instant he and Anton walked in the door.

Arthur tried to keep his distance from the others. He offered his congratulations to Yusuf and Ariadne, shook his hand and kissed her cheek, and tried not to make it obvious that he was looking toward the door. Looking for Eames. He usually tried to refrain from drinking, but he found that filling and refilling his cup with rum was the only thing that made the noise and the embarrassment and the loneliness and the weight bearable. Soon the room began to look blurry and refracted, a view through cut crystal, and he was glad of it, though Anton put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, whispering, Sir, don’t you think you’ve had enough? At least for now? He tried to take a step forward but lost his balance and wobbled forward into Anton, who held him up by the elbows and whispered You’re alright. You’re alright.

Just then he looked over Anton’s shoulder and watched a flash of hyacinth purple wend its way through the crowd. He heard Eames’s accented voice thanking people for their praise and congratulations. Arthur grabbed Anton’s shoulders and positioned him so as to obscure himself from Eames’ line of sight.

“Are you all right, sir?” Anton asked, glancing behind him in the direction where Eames was smiling and kneeling to inspect the embroidery on Ariadne’s skirt.

“I think I need some fresh air,” Arthur uttered weakly. Anton his elbow, and Arthur grabbed it, letting Anton support most of his stubborn drunk weight. They stumbled together through the crowd, Anton uttering apologies, Herr Hahnemann is not well, I am sorry, and Arthur trying not to meet the disappointed and pitying eyes. He was sure he knew what they were thinking: a thief and a drunkard, what use is he to any decent folk?

Anton led Arthur down the winding iron staircase to the back courtyard.

“I am supposed to be a model of excellent behavior,” Arthur lamented, looking up at the wan light from the balcony and scrubbing his tight, itchy face with the palms of his hands.

“Everyone has lapses now and then,” Anton soothed as he placed a steady hand on Arthur’s upper back. “You must forgive yourself.”

“Forgive myself?” Arthur cried. “Anton, if you had any idea what I’d done—surely you’ve heard—“

“I have heard nothing,” Anton replied. “If anyone has tried to tell me anything, I have refused to hear it, because I know that you are a good man.”

Arthur shook his head slowly, but had to stop himself because it was whipping up his nausea. “I am not a good man, Anton,” he muttered. “I didn’t want to tell you what I did, but I can’t stop now. Too drunk.”

“I am sure it is not as bad—“

Arthur interrupted him. “I took credit for a symphony I did not write. Even after its rightful author wanted me to set the record straight. I refused. Every appointment I had was because of that symphony, Anton. I could not have afforded the home I lived in, or the clothes I wear, or the food I eat without it. Anything. I am a thief.”

Anton only stared at Arthur dumbfounded.

“Well?”

“I am surprised at you, sir,” Anton said at last, eyes downcast. “I have to say I expected better of you.”

“You always thought I could do no wrong,” Arthur said sadly. “Since we were children. And I let you think that of me, I encouraged it, because it made me feel like I was perfect. So every time I stole or lied, I blamed someone else, so that you wouldn’t think any less of me.”

“Oh, Arthur,” whispered Anton sadly. Arthur placed his hands on Anton’s shoulders.

“Look at me, Anton,” Arthur urged. “Please tell me you forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” Anton said weakly.

“You don’t really.” Arthur bit his trembling lip to keep his restraint, and Anton reached up to touch his cheek. Arthur leaned into the soft touch, and without thinking, he pressed his lips onto Anton’s. His mouth slid messily over Anton’s for what felt like a long time, though the motion was all Arthur’s; Anton remained still, holding Arthur in place with a sober hand on his upper arm. At last Arthur drew back, wiped his mouth, and tried to balance himself on his shaky legs.

“I’m sorry. I should not have done that,” Arthur apologized. Anton rubbed Arthur’s shoulder placatingly and looked up.

“I think someone’s watching,” Anton announced. “Should we go back upstairs?”

“I’d rather leave,” said Arthur. He knew they’d have to go back through the house anyway.

They ascended the staircase; their observer was gone by the time they got to the balcony. Inside the girls were dancing in a circle and young men were trying to break the circle to grab them. It was an old Marchian wedding tradition. Eames usually loved games, but there was no sign of him, and Arthur thought—the first comforting thought of the night—that Eames had left the celebration, or was upstairs. Somewhere out of the way, where Arthur would not have to meet his eye.

Anton took Arthur’s overcoat off of the coat rack and draped it over Arthur’s shoulders; they went out together into the damp raw cold of the night.

“Wait,” said a voice from behind Arthur.

That voice.

Arthur turned around as slowly as possible.

“You can’t run from me forever.”

“I can. The world is getting larger every day,” Arthur said coldly and began to walk, though more slowly, toward his carriage.

“What have I done this time?” Eames demanded as he strode towards him. “You know I had no ill intent in opening that cabinet. Until last week I didn’t even know that that was why you sent me from your home that day. It was just a bloody cabinet full of papers. I stole nothing.”

“You stole nothing?” Arthur laughed. “You’ve got such an incredible sense of entitlement, Eames. It’s unbelievable. You think everything is for your amusement. You stole things no one was ever meant to see.”

“And look what I did with them! Arthur, if it weren’t for me all of that would still be locked away, and no one would know what you were capable of.”

“They were mine to hide away,” Arthur said sullenly. “You had no right. At least you could have asked.”

“I’m asking now,” Eames said. “Work with me. You don’t even have to like me. But the Duke of Pfefferburg has commissioned an opera from me, and I cannot write it with anyone but you.”

Arthur glanced back at Anton, who watched them with worried curiosity surrounded by the light of his lantern. Then he looked back at Eames. Eames who was neat and sober and sad-looking tonight, yet who was, Arthur reminded himself harshly, the same impulsive, selfish, wicked-tongued man he’d always been and probably always would be.

“I don’t enjoy getting people angry with me,” Eames declared. “Not always. But I can’t keep my mouth shut or my fingers still sometimes.”

Arthur took a step toward Eames. “I will try to work with you,” he said resignedly.

The gleam of Eames’s grin cut through the darkness. “I will try my best not to be jealous of your lover. I know that what we did, it wasn’t what you wanted, and I can’t claim you as my own.”

“Eames, that’s not—“ Arthur rushed to correct him but found himself unable to say the words. “And you’ll have to promise me that you’ll be able to restrain yourself. I don’t want to have to tie your hands or anything like that.”

Eames straightened his shoulders and cocked his head. “For you, I will be on my best behavior.”

§
April, 1799

“So when Girolamo first meets the sorcerer, who do you think should speak first?” Arthur pondered aloud.

“I leave that decision in your immensely capable hands,” Eames answered.

For seven months now they had been working on their opera, The Descent of Girolamo. Its libretto was taken from the story Arthur had told Eames when he lay in bed in a fog of pain and laudanum. The morning after Yusuf and Ariadne’s wedding, and quite early in the morning at that, Eames had arrived on Arthur’s doorstep waving a crinkled piece of paper which he shoved into Arthur’s hands. When Arthur examined it, he found that it was, almost word for word, the story as Arthur had told it. I never forgot it, Eames swore.

Then why didn’t you write the opera yourself, tell everyone that the story was yours? No one would believe me if I claimed authorship anyway.

Because, Eames had said softly. I am not that kind of thief. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean it that way—I meant that I could never deny you the glory that belongs to you.

“I meant to congratulate you on your vow of chastity.” Eames, straddling the piano bench, jabbed the needle into the piece of brown moire in his hands. He’d been working for hours at attaching a span of fringed lace to it, and Arthur had tried not to watch his hands conducting the thread through the garment in quick, skillful sweeps, hypnotic as it was to watch.

“My vow of—what?” Arthur asked, confused. He tapped the soft end of a quill against his lower lip, wondering how best to end one of the inkblob-studded metrical lines on the page beneath him.

“The other day. When Yusuf asked you about your romantic prospects, you told him you’d taken a vow of chastity. Is that true?” Eames asked.

Arthur felt his cheeks redden. “I told him that because my romantic life is none of his business,” he fairly snapped.

“And, by extension, none of mine. Fair enough,” Eames said breezily, then returned his attention to the needle’s rhythmic rise and fall.

“While we’re on the subject, how is your Annette?” Arthur asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

“Nonexistent,” said Eames.

“What? You mean you’re no longer together?” questioned Arthur.

“No.” Eames smiled. “Meaning that she doesn’t exist. I wanted to see how you’d react to the news that I had a lover, so I—well, I made her up.”

Arthur shoved the paper and his lap desk aside and rose to his feet to stand over Eames angrily.

“For six months you led me to believe that you’ve got a lover, that it’s serious, that you feel nothing for me anymore? Did you really expect that I’d throw a jealous fit? I was willing to accept that you’d bloody well moved on.” Arthur shoved Eames lightly, causing Eames to jab the needle into his own thigh.

“I didn’t think you cared about me,” Eames said bluntly. “Not the way I care about you. Perhaps you wanted to fuck me, and maybe you felt some sort of responsibility towards me, like a wayward child who needs to be looked after. But whenever I tried to show you how I felt about you, you looked so cold, so distant.”

“I risked my life for you,” Arthur hissed.

“I know. It’s one of the reasons why I love you.” Eames gazed earnestly up into Arthur’s eyes. “And I am grateful to you for that. You know I am.”

“So what, do you want sighing and fainting and passionate declarations?” Arthur spit the words out.

“Nothing of the sort. But still, bringing a criminal to justice isn’t exactly much of a cure for an empty bed or a lonely heart.” Eames’s tone was glum.

Arthur nearly snarled. “But you’re alive.”

Arthur seized Eames by his lapels and pulled him in, and ground his lips against Eames’s lips furiously, then sucked hard enough on Eames’s bottom lip that he could imagine a dark bruise rising on it. Eventually Arthur gave into Eames’s attempt to apply a gentler touch, and he lessened some of the kiss’s punishing pressure. Arthur kissed a truce into Eames’s vulnerable open mouth, kissed his sorrow and confusion and crushing loneliness into the softest gentlest part of Eames’s body, willing him, begging him to understand.

Eames drew back, touching his knuckle to Arthur’s cheek as a signal that he didn’t mean the pause as a rejection. “You do love me.”

Arthur nodded and swallowed back a swarm of denials and aversions. “I do.” He lifted Eames’s palm to his lips and kissed it softly. “I have. For what feels like a very long time.”

Eames wrapped his hand around Arthur’s. “Let me make love to you.”

They undressed in the quiet bedchamber, sliding off wigs, working open cravats, pulling off each item of clothing—frock coat, waistcoat, trousers, stockings, undergarments --with increasing urgency. Unless they needed to bend to take off a distant garment, they kissed long and steadily all the while, as if it were a non-negotiable state of their being and undressing. When they’d finally shed all their garments Eames guided Arthur down onto the bed face-down, soft palm and rough fingertips splayed between his shoulderblades; the hand traveled down Arthur’s spine in smooth arousing strokes. Eames petted Arthur till his vision went hazy and he was grinding his hips into the bedclothes, his lips parted to allow harsh, heavy breaths to pass. Wet lips massaged Arthur’s back, sucked red marks into his skin. After what felt like an eternity of thrusting his arse up towards Eames’s cock, of telling Eames what he wanted and needed, Arthur felt Eames’s hands part his arse, felt a fingertip—deliciously calloused—brush against his hole.

“Fuck me,” Arthur breathed, half his face smashed into a cushion. He knew his cheek would be embossed with the lines from the fabric for some time afterward, and he didn’t care. “I need it. There’s oil in the bedside table drawer.”

Eames left another lingering kiss on the nape of his neck before reaching over to get the tiny bottle. Arthur didn’t look up; he wanted to hear Eames unscrew the cap, wanted to hear the soft glug of oil onto Eames’s hands, to anticipate the first cold slippery touch without knowing exactly when. Before Eames worked Arthur’s hole open he ran his oiled hands over Arthur’s buttocks, up and down, and kneaded them. Then he began the slide of a finger into Arthur. The pace was glacial, and Arthur needed more now; he canted his hips, pushed them upwards to take in more of Eames’s finger. Eames took the hint, and began to move his finger around in gentle ever-wider circles, patiently, patiently stretching the tight opening.

“Another finger,” Arthur demanded, and Eames obliged. Arthur reveled in the new fullness, and when Eames began to scissor him he felt a delicious pressure against his inner center of pleasure, and he wanted the thick head of Eames’s cock to press against that place inside him. He reached backwards for Eames’s wrist, stilling the motion of Eames’s fingers, and put voice to those desires.

Arthur heard Eames slicking up again. It was only seconds before he felt the tip of Eames’s cock against him. Arthur was stretched wide open and everything was in place ready for Eames to just sink in, but he didn’t. He rested his cock at the top of Arthur’s cleft, rubbing it against the very lowest part of his lower back.

“You know, you’ve got some lovely dimples here,” Eames said, touching the aforementioned dimples on Arthur’s lower back with a finger. He moved his cock away and slid back, and he pressed his mouth to the two indented places his fingers had just touched. “Maybe I’ll just come here instead.”

“Eames,” Arthur groaned.

“Alright, alright. But you have to promise me that someday I can.” Eames lined his body up parallel to Arthur’s again so that he was practically lying on top of him, his forehead touching Arthur’s shoulder. He arched back like a cat to line up once more, using one hand to brace himself on the bed and the other to part Arthur’s buttocks for entry.

“Right now I will promise you anything,” Arthur said, though it was getting hard to speak. “I need you inside me.”

Eames slid into him. The further in he slid, the more Arthur could feel Eames’s body weighing him down. At the moment he wanted nothing more than to bear Eames’s entire weight and be fucked into place. The position kept their lovemaking slow. When Arthur reached down to touch his cock and lifted his hips off the bed, thrusting Eames’s cock a little deeper inside him, Eames pushed Arthur back down by the small of his back.

“Not so fast, love,” Eames whispered, and kissed the edge of Arthur’s ear.

Arthur’s cock was trapped beneath him, and he could feel the sticky clear liquid seeping onto his skin. Every time Eames’s cock slid as deep as it could go, every time Eames angled his hips to fit inside Arthur fully and smoothly, the dizzy swell in Arthur’s stomach spread a little more ruthlessly. At last he wriggled his hand beneath their shared weight and squeezed his cock, choked it tight as Eames kept rubbing him deep and slow and the pleasure mounted and then, then, when he thought the bottled-up pressure would implode and possibly kill him, he finally came all over his fingers and bedclothes.

Eames sat up without warning, knelt between Arthur’s legs and pulled him up by his hips so that Arthur was on all fours. He began driving into him fast, faster, and Arthur knew by the speed and desperation of his movements and by his grunting that Eames was about to come inside him.

After Eames did come, he rolled onto his side and pulled Arthur close to him. Arthur shied away.

“I’m just going to go clean myself off,” he said apologetically. “Just—while all of this is still new.” He hoped that would suffice for explanation.

After he had gone behind the screen and used the washbasin to clean himself out, he came back to the bed with a damp towel and sponged off Eames’s sticky cock. He flung the towel to the floor and arranged himself Eames on his back, Arthur on his stomach, their shoulders just overlapping. Eames’s hand crept across Arthur’s waist and held him there, urging him nearer. Finally Arthur relented and draped his body over Eames’s chest. Arthur’s fingers tripped up the smooth underside of the arm Eames had flung on the pillow over his head.

“In case you need to have it notarized, I love you,” Arthur mumbled into Eames’s collarbone. Eames’s hand played in Arthur’s short dark curls, spiraled a lock around his finger and let it unfurl lazily against Arthur’s cheek.

“Mmmm. Thank you,”

“Thank you?” Arthur laughed.

“Why not?” Eames asked, kissing the top of Arthur’s head.

§

“What are you talking about, Arthur? I’d make a wonderful manservant.” Eames smoothed the fabric of the jacket over Arthur’s shoulders and tugged it down over his hips until it fell just right. “I do all the important things well. I dress you, and undress you, and relieve your tension in all the best ways…”

“Yes,” Arthur admitted while looking down and admiring the elegant lines of the rich brown jacket trimmed with Albionorian lace. “You do all of those things well. You also tend to lie in bed until two in the afternoon and demand that I give you sponge baths even though you aren’t even remotely ill.”

Eames shrugged. “One must sometimes put up with unpleasant things for the sake of good service. Though if what usually happens afterward is any indication I don’t think you find it all that unpleasant to bathe me. I’m still sore from last time.” He took a step back, unable to tear his eyes from his own admittedly impressive handiwork. There were still times Arthur felt pangs of envy, that Eames had been aware of his true gifts all his life, that he had known how to blend them seamlessly and fill each role required of him without effort. Not without pain, though, Eames had told him once. I have had to live with the feeling that no one but my sister has ever truly liked me except as a precocious performing monkey.

“Beautiful,” Eames said, kneeling at Arthur’s side and fingering the jacket’s hem. “The jacket, partly, but mostly you.” He moved around to Arthur’s front, raised himself up on his knees, and fit his mouth over the soft bulge in Arthur’s trousers.

“You can’t make me come in my pants an hour before the performance,” Arthur said, though not without regret.

“Then take your pants off,” Eames said, still mouthing over Arthur’s fast-hardening cock. “I still owe you for the way you licked my arse out this morning. Dear God.”

“I take back what I said about you being good at dressing me,” Arthur groaned as Eames slid his trousers down and pumped his now-naked cock. “You’re incredibly inefficient. For every item of clothing that goes on, two seem to come off.”

“Hush,” said Eames, and his mouth enveloped Arthur’s cock.

Time constraints notwithstanding, coming in Eames’s mouth was preferable to Arthur coming in his trousers, and both were far preferable to not coming at all. Arthur bit his fingers as he came to keep from crying out too loudly, although he knew that stifling his pleasure was just a formality--his servants knew what he and Eames were to each other.

Eames used his tongue to clean Arthur up, followed by the silk handkerchief Arthur reluctantly allowed him to extract from the pocket of the brown frock coat. He then allowed Eames to undo the buttons of his coat and waistcoat--proving his point about Eames’s dubious dressing skills exactly--and let Eames nuzzle at his belly for awhile before the crystal-encased clock on the piano struck struck the half hour and Arthur was forced to push Eames’s head away, though Eames protested sourly.

“You can have this at any other time,” Arthur soothed, tilting Eames’s chin up. “But now you have to get dressed.”

While Eames dressed, Arthur sat in the parlor and poured them each a glass of Eames’s favorite whisky, distilled in a village near his childhood home. He’d never quite gotten used to the oaky, sweetish taste, but he poured it down his gullet for Eames’s sake, because for Eames it was good luck and celebration and comfort and nostalgia. When Eames emerged from the bedchamber, wearing the oxblood jacket Arthur had bought for him—ornate brass buttons and fashionably wide cuffs—Arthur handed him a glass.

“Lovely,” Arthur said, admitting what he often thought and often could not say. “Partly the jacket, but mostly you.”

They toasted to the success of The Descent of Girolamo and drank their glasses down. Arthur leaned over and kissed Eames’s whisky-stung lips.

“It’s a good thing you’ve already had your first brush with scandal,” Eames murmured into Arthur’s cheek. “This opera is not going to sit too well with polite society, you know.”

“I have so little to lose in popular opinion anyway.” Arthur laughed. “I’m not concerned.”

There was a knock on the door just as Arthur dove in to kiss Eames again.

“Come in,” Arthur called.

“Herr Hahnemann, Herr Eames, your carriage is waiting,” Anton announced. “Congratulations to you both, gentlemen,” he offered as they passed, and Eames clapped Anton on the shoulder. They heard sobbing from down the corridor, and Christina approached, holding a balled-up handkerchief to her eyes.

“For once, I’m the one crying and not him,” Christina said through her tears, indicating Anton with her elbow.

“I have cried twice in my life,” Anton replied. Christina choked on a laugh.

“Well?” Eames plucked Arthur’s hat from the wall and placed it atop Arthur’s head, then offered Arthur his elbow. “Our public disgrace awaits.”

“If someday I left Marchia for somewhere else, another country,” Arthur said softly as they’re walking down the stairs, “do you think you might consider coming along?”

Eames’s silence worried Arthur until he ran a comforting hand across Arthur’s back and laughed. “My dear fellow, of course I would. I would follow you to the ends of the earth whether you wanted me there or not. But you’ll never leave Marchia for good.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “I won’t? How do you know this?”

“The biscuits. You like the biscuits here far too much.”

Arthur smiled in spite of himself. “I’m sure there are quality biscuits elsewhere.”

“Come home with me,” Eames whispered as they ducked their heads and slid into the carriage, Anton sliding in after them. The carriage jostled about as the horses began trotting.

“Home? Down the street?” Arthur was confused.

“I haven’t been back to Albionoria in a year and a half,” Eames said. “I hadn’t wanted to go back. But there are things I want to show you. I’m from Olcan City. The noisiest, filthiest, most dangerous place in the world. Communal graves ten people deep and fantastic organ meats, though the latter I hope has nothing to do with the former.”

“Sounds like a wonderful place,” said Arthur, unconsciously stroking the intricate lace on his coat.

Eames snuck a wry look at him. “It will be.”

§

The last strains of the overture died away and the curtain rose to reveal Girolamo, as played by Yusuf, alone in a city square. Behind him appeared to be a maze of slick streets writhing with mist as he sang out his sadness and ire at his lack of a soul. Then a figure in a black cloak emerged from the darkness. In his rumbling bass he seduced Girolamo into taking the glass jar he held in his gloved hands: the Jar of Souls. Girolamo tried to resist, but his greed won out, and he ran into the night, singing of his certain damnation as the screech of the violins pursued him like harpies.

The next part of the opera was almost comical. Girolamo tried to cajole a fellow student, a boy who had a soul like a golden bell, into breathing into a jar. He told the boy that the jar contained the larva of a golden fly which could be awakened only by a human’s breath. When the boy marveled at his own soul, which did indeed take the appearance of a golden fly, he asked if he could keep it, but Girolamo refused, and when Girolamo returned to his own room, he swallowed the fly and the boy’s soul became his.

But soon one soul was not enough. Whenever Girolamo met a man with a gift for oratory, or a talent for seducing women, he would tell him the story of the golden fly. There was a scene where hundreds of souls fought for dominance within Girolamo’s body, and Arthur didn’t know how he managed it, but Yusuf played dozens of characters within the span of a minute, adopting and discarding each face and voice and posture as though he were shuffling through a deck of cards.

And when Girolamo met Simonetta, his love, his demeanor was so bright, so boyish, so determined to begin anew, that one could truly believe that he meant to destroy the Jar of Souls. But it would not be smashed, and when he tried to send it down the river it was returned to him on his wedding night by a Mysterious Gondolier who, accompanied by mandolin, sang a cryptic lullabyish refrain about the difference between the things we own and the things that truly belong to us.

And after the jubilant Wedding March and the joyous duet where the young couple narrated the decorating of their new home, Girolamo’s real troubles began.

One night, as he sat to play the piano, he heard an unearthly voice from the adjoining room. It was Simonetta, singing along as she pounded her fist into a bowl of bread dough. He tried to sing along with her, and here Yusuf quite convincingly sang as if he couldn’t sing. His voice, compared to the clarion beauty of hers, was dull and flat, like a donkey straining to overtake a racehorse. The following morning he watched her sleep, agonizing over his jealousy of her effortless charm, her wit, her beauty. When she awoke, he asked her to breathe into the glass jar.

She was suspicious. His efforts to convince her echoed, musically and lyrically, the voice of the black-robed magician who seduced him into taking the jar of souls. At last he grasped her by the shoulders and she, frightened, relented.

After she had breathed her soul into the jar, she was as passive as a doll. When Girolamo tried to speak to her, she answered in single syllables, and she lounged on the couch and stared straight ahead at nothing. Girolamo began to despair. He took to the streets at night, searching down every alley for the man in the black robes. At last he found him and begged him to allow Girolamo to give Simonetta her soul back. The magician agreed that he would give Simonetta a soul if he, Girolamo, would bring the girl to his lair the following day.

Girolamo did so. The magician put them to sleep with a magic draught, and when they woke up she was once again bright and charming. Uncannily so. She sang an aria shimmeringly seductive, overwhelming in the sheer technical skill required; it was as if she were three singers in one. And so captivated was the magician that he seized her at once, and they both disappeared in a clap of thunder, leaving Girolamo broken and bewildered.

Sick and bedraggled, Girolamo staggered through the city until he to the river, where he sang of drowning himself. Just before he cast himself into the swollen waters, the Mysterious Gondolier pulled up beside him and offered to ferry him to the underworld for the price of a song. Along the way they sang a mournful duet, slow as the sweeping of the oars that pulled them along.

After the Mysterious Gondolier dropped him at the gates, unable to accompany him further, Girolamo wandered through the underworld, battling temptations of increasing magnitude: personifications of money, sex, power, revenge. At last, while he walked through a dense forest on weary and failing legs, he heard the voice of his beloved echoing through the trees, and he followed it to find her trapped inside a cave, lamenting her abduction and her betrayal by the man she loved. He began to unchain her, to beg her forgiveness, when the wicked magician returned from the hunt with his arms full of human bones.

The magician began to fling spells at Girolamo, and he fell to his knees, crying out for mercy from God. His pleas were to no avail. The magician sang out his triumph, thrilling at the thought of possessing Girolamo’s soul. Without your heart distracted by this foolish mortal, Simonetta, the magician crowed, you and I can rule the underworld as gods; all of mankind will be our carrion feast. Prying Girolamo’s mouth open with his hands, he recited the incantation to draw Girolamo’s soul out of his body.

Sweetly, Simonetta asked the magician to unchain her so that she could spit on Girolamo’s corpse and then kiss her rightful lover. The magician, gloating, with wide sweeps of his cape, obliged. The young woman knelt over Girolamo’s body and spit into his open mouth.

No sooner did she do this than Girolamo’s body began to come back to life.

The magician, in a rage, began to strike at the walls of the cave, while Girolamo, dazed, his face full of wonder, asked how it was that the magician had taken his soul, yet Simonetta had given it back to him. Simonetta replied fervently that she had always believed that when one person loves another, they carry a piece of their soul, not for use, but for safekeeping.

And where was your soul inside me when I stole yours? Girolamo asked her.

You did not have it. Because you did not love me yet.

They escaped as the cave collapsed. The way through the woods is perilous, he warned her, and grasped her hand.

But we will keep each other strong, she insisted.

We will keep each other strong, he agreed, and the orchestra provided the exclamation mark as the curtain fell.

From his box Arthur peered down into the audience. They were still and silent as if sleeping.

They hate it, he thought. As I expected. He looked down, but all he could see was the top of Eames’s head; Eames, too, was facing the audience expectantly.

The sound of a single, slow clap--the Emperor, probably--resonated through the concert hall and began to pick up speed. It was followed by another, and then another, and the sounds of applause multiplied exponentially. Then the cheering began. The audience rose from their seats, clapping thunderously, shouting barely intelligible words of praise.

But Arthur could see only Eames as Eames looked up at him with a wide grin on his face. He winked, mouthed some words Arthur couldn’t quite read, then bowed deeply in the direction of Arthur’s box.

Arthur thought how absurd the smile on his own face must look, and he was grateful for the relative safety the box afforded. But he was certain that Eames knew everything in his mind at that moment.

The audience was looking in his direction, he realized, and as he made his own slightly embarrassed bows he thought about what the first thing he’d say to Eames would be when they were alone at last, after they’d been congratulated and celebrated and hugged and blushed at and coughed upon by everyone who was anyone in the city. Perhaps he’d say It’s true. All of mankind is our carrion feast. Or Looks like you were wrong about our public disgrace. And you always said I was the pessimist between us.

But no. None of that.

He had something better in mind.

[ART] Sometimes You're In Love

2011-09-16T03:01:16Z

Title: Sometimes You're In Love
Artist: red_rahl
Team: ROMANCE
Prompt: Devotion
Rating: G
Warnings: Nuthin' but fluffy chibi fluff!
A/N: This is for unvarnishedtale & immoral_crow's amazing 100 Things Verse, #73, which was just ridiculously wonderful, I can't even.

Fic & Art: Chimera - 4/4

2011-09-14T18:25:01Z

Title: Chimera: Snake Eyes
Author/Artist: bauble & enoughglitter
Rating: PG-13
Team: Angst
Prompt: lies, sex
Warnings: Prostitution
Word Count: 600 words
Summary: Alternate Reality where Eames is a dream!hooker and Arthur is the client that keeps coming back. Set within the world of Inception, but diverging from the events of canon. Final chapter in a 4 part WIP.

Chapter 1: Lioness Passant
Chapter 2: The Goat
Chapter 3: A Breath of Fire

Chapter 4: Snake Eyes

“You’re a difficult man to track down, Mr. Eames.”

Eames studies the craps table before him, wonders if this will be his lucky roll. He pushes the pitiful pile of chips he has left forward, and throws the dice.

Nothing but snake eyes.

“Better luck next time,” the dealer says as she takes Eames’ chips.

Eames ducks away from the table, pointedly avoiding looking in the direction of the man that had spoken his name. Anyone searching him out is probably bearing bad news or ill-fortune as their cargo.

“You’re just going to ignore me?”

Eames stops when it becomes clear he isn’t going to be able to shake his tracker that easily, and doesn’t turn around. “Usually when a man goes to great lengths not to be found, it means he’s not interested in making new friends.”

“Maybe. But I'm not so new, and I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.” Suddenly, the noise of the casino around them seems muted, as if someone had turned the volume dial all the way down. And as the words echo in Eames’ mind, something familiar emerges about the man’s voice—a quality Eames once knew from a lifetime ago.

Eames holds a hand out in front of him and watches it twist into that of a child’s, then a young woman’s, then a gnarled old man’s. He schools his expression into a neutrality which gives nothing away and turns around. “What is it you want, Arthur?”

He looks a few years older but barely, hair slicked straight back instead of loose. His body is as trim as ever, wrapped in a three piece suit paired with more practical shoes. Still gorgeous. Still knows it. Eames waits for a dreadfully predictable response--something like, I’m here to see you, or, you haven’t changed at all. But instead Arthur says, “I’m not here to extract from you.”

Something akin to alarm begins to swell up in Eames’ gut. No projection--regardless of how lifelike--has ever had the capacity to surprise him. Not like the real thing. “Am I supposed to take you at your word on this?”

“Have I ever lied to you?” Arthur parries. “Besides, if I wanted your secrets, I’d already have them and we wouldn’t be talking right now.”

“Bold words.” Arthur’s barely said six sentences and already Eames can feel the intractable pull forwards, the way Arthur makes him want to throw everything else down in order to step back into the ring, see who can draw first blood. “But it’s always good to hear that the people who break into my mind have only the noblest intentions.”

“I never said anything about noble.” Arthur smiles, and that’s the same as well--irresistible challenge, written in an arrow’s bow. “I’m putting together a team.”

Eames glances around the casino, jaw tightening when he realizes that none of the projections seem perturbed at all. What this probably says about his subconscious’ feelings is likely not lost on Arthur, either. “There are plenty of good thieves out there.”

“This isn’t just another corporate espionage job,” Arthur says as he steps forward. “I need someone who makes the impossible possible. Someone to help me do what can’t be done.”

Eames should shoot himself out of the dream. He should run like hell and never stop running. He should— “After all this time, what could you possibly have to offer me?”

Arthur smiles like he already knows which way the dice will land, like he’s always known. “Inception.”

fin

Fic & Art: Chimera - 3/4

2011-09-13T22:31:33Z

Title: Chimera: A Breath of Fire
Author/Artist: bauble & enoughglitter
Rating: NC-17
Team: Angst
Prompt: lies, sex
Warnings: Prostitution
Word Count: 2,500 words
Summary: Alternate Reality where Eames is a dream!hooker and Arthur is the client that keeps coming back. Set within the world of Inception, but diverging from the events of canon. Third chapter in a 4 part WIP.

Chapter 1: Lioness Passant
Chapter 2: The Goat

“We meet again,” Arthur says. He lifts the spoon he was stirring in his coffee and places it delicately on the saucer underneath his china teacup.

They’re sitting on a picturesque set of wrought-iron chairs at the top of a very tall hill. The Tuscan countryside is spread out below them, rolling green punctuated with cypresses and crepuscular rays of light. It’s a sunrise, Eames decides, and suddenly the dream seems brighter.

“Because you keep rejecting the perfectly capable prostitutes I send your way,” Eames replies, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’d think that after the first three times, someone would take a hint.”

“I don’t want them,” Arthur says, as infuriatingly calm and sure as always. “I want you.”

“And you’re not accustomed to not getting what you want, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” Arthur says with a conspiratorial smile that’s probably melted scores of unsuspecting hearts. “Are you going to hold it against me if I don’t want to start now?”

Eames looks away, refusing to be charmed. “I don’t do regulars. It’s not personal.” That second part’s a lie, but thankfully lying is one of the things Eames does do, and well.

“You know, a friend of mine comes to your agency. Often. He’s how I found out about the whole business of dream prostitution to begin with. Told me I could try it once, but to never do it twice because it’s too easy to get sucked in. To lose track of what’s real and what’s not.” Arthur snorts softly. “Hypocrite.”

“So that’s what brought you here, then? Referral from a friend?” Eames raises an eyebrow. “Have I met him?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. He came to you guys looking for something specific,” Arthur says. “You don’t do specific, right?”

“It’s not about specificity, per se.” Eames lifts one shoulder. “I take on the people who claim they don’t know what they want and ferret out whatever it is they’re searching for. But everyone always knows, deep down--I merely articulate it so they don’t have to.”

Arthur sits back, his expression thoughtful. “I didn’t think anyone could be as good as my friend claimed. And I was right—except for you.”

“My my, you do know how to make a girl feel special.” Eames leans forward, offering an excellent view of the cleavage of Persian 30-something woman he’s wearing. He’s tired of the questions and ready for the sex—which is usually more straightforward and less likely to head in troubling directions.

Arthur looks, but isn’t distracted. Eames frowns a little at that. “I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

“You can do whatever you want,” Eames says it lightly, but there’s something in Arthur’s tone, something weighty beyond yet another lunge or parry in their sparring. Eames readies himself; perhaps today is the day he will finally hear the secret so terrible it’s taken months for Arthur to grow comfortable enough to reveal. A sex act, or something that’s nothing to do with sex at all. “You always do, anyway.”

Arthur cocks his head to one side. “How did you get into doing this?”

Eames starts for a split-second, but recovers quickly; he doesn’t think Arthur notices. “Why, are you looking to save me from the tragic past that’s driven me down the path of selling my mind and body for money?”

“Save you?” Arthur chuckles. “I’d like to see someone try. I’m not interested in damsels in distress. I’m just--”

“Curious, yes?” Eames shrugs. “Unfortunately, the story’s really quite dull. Scion came and offered a job. I took it, and I’ve been plying my trade here ever since.”

“Except that’s not even half the story.” Arthur studies Eames in a way that reminds them of when they first met: calculating, shrewd, doggedly determined. “How you got into dreamshare, how you became so good at what you do.”

“And what if I were to turn the question on you?” Eames counters. “Would you be so forthcoming?”

“We both know there’s nothing about my past you haven’t already figured out. Your job is to figure it out.” Arthur spreads his hands in front of him, palms up. “I’m ex-military. I worked in an experimental dreamshare program until it was dissolved, leading everyone involved to be discharged under strict gag orders. I tried to go back to normality, tried to live the straight and narrow—but what’s the mundane compared to the fantastic, to the impossible made possible? Who could stay away once they’ve had a taste?”

“You’ve stripped away the mystery, Arthur,” Eames says, voice light as he stands up. “I’m afraid you’re simply not half as fun anymore.”

Arthur leans across the table to catch Eames’ wrist. “You are part of the fantastic, the impossible made possible. That’s why I keep coming back.”

Eames looks down at his hand. “Little old me?”

“You.” Arthur’s fingers skim up Eames’ arm to his elbow, then his shoulder. “That’s what I want. That’s why I keep coming back. I want to see you.”

Eames smiles genially, blandly. “This is me.”

“The real you. Not Eve, not Adam, not another one of your creations.” Arthur stands as well. “I want the reflection you see in the mirror when you’re awake.”

“What’s the mundane compared to the fantastic?” Eames peers up at Arthur through his lashes. “Sad, boring reality compared to perfection?”

“I don’t know.” Arthur cups Eames’ jaw. “I guess that’s what I want to find out.”

Eames doesn’t know why he does it. Or, more accurately—he doesn’t want to know why he does it—but he’s learned over the years that past a certain point, wondering why doesn’t help anyone. A bullet discharged can never be recalled to the way it was, where it was, before it lodged deep in someone’s kidney, their liver, their heart.
Eames cycles through three forgeries before shifting, lightning-fast, to his true self. But all it takes is that momentary flicker and Arthur knows.

“This is you,” Arthur says, voice hushed as he takes Eames’ face into his hands. Arthur’s hands are rough, and even though Eames knows there shouldn’t be a difference between the way they feel on the skin of a forgery as opposed to his own, there’s an almost visceral jolt that accompanies every sketch of Arthur’s thumb against Eames’ stubble, every twitch of his index finger next to Eames’ lip.

Eames waits while Arthur steps back, circles and examines him from every angle. As the study drags on, Eames finally says in something alarmingly close to his own voice and accent, “Well? How does the mundane measure up?”

Arthur smiles, and ceases his pacing. “You are extraordinary. But you already know that.” He puts a possessive arm around Eames’ waist and pulls him in for a kiss, bearing him down onto the ground, which has changed from grassy hillside to the firm mattress of a king-sized bed.

When they pull away between kisses for breath, Arthur gestures at the sleek studio apartment surrounding them and says, “My place. You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.”

Eames gives the apartment a discreet scan and notes the elegant steel bookshelf, rows and rows of books with blurred-out titles; the chrome fruit bowl on the coffee table, filled to the brim with apples; the framed photo of two women with similar coloring and facial features to Arthur on the nightstand.

“And here I thought I knew everything I needed to already.” Eames reaches down to squeeze Arthur’s prick through his trousers.

“I’m a complicated man,” Arthur says as he straddles Eames’ hips. “Or haven’t you heard?”

“Shouldn’t believe everything you hear nowadays.” Eames rolls them both over so Arthur’s lying on his back. A thought later and Arthur’s naked, dick curving upwards to flop gently against his stomach.

“That’s not very fair.” Arthur plucks at Eames’ T-shirt collar in protest, but seems to lose interest in objecting when Eames ducks down to lick the head of his cock. Eames lavishes his cock with a few more licks—at the base near the balls, the underside of the shaft, the slit. After he’s teased enough to sufficiently show off the virtues of his mouth, he takes Arthur’s dick in all the way.

Arthur’s got a good dick: clean, not too large or embarrassingly small, no odd growths, decent shape with a bit of a curve to the left. It’s not difficult to go down on him, not difficult to moan and suck like he’s greedy for it. Eames waits until Arthur’s pushing towards the edge of orgasm to pull off, earning him a frustrated groan and thrust up.

Before he can get too cranky, however, Eames settles astride Arthur’s lap and licks his lips. Attention recaptured, Eames reaches down to pull his shirt up over his head, arching his back and stretching a little more than strictly necessary as he does so. Once the shirt’s been tossed in a corner, Eames takes Arthur’s hand, guides it to the bulge in Eames’ trousers and says in a low, throaty voice, “Will you do the honors?”

Arthur sucks in a shaky breath before undoing the fly and pulling Eames’ prick out gently. Eames crawls forward to rub his length against Arthur’s abdomen as he slides out of his trousers, and then makes them disappear completely while Arthur goes to work biting and sucking at his neck.

Eames sits back to let Arthur take in the view for a moment before sinking onto his dick with an ease and fluidity only possible in dreams. He moans and arches his back when he’s fully seated, undulating his hips at a pace designed to keep Arthur happy but not rushed.

Arthur’s hands come up to move restlessly over Eames’ hips, as if torn between the desire to wrest control away or allow it to be taken from him. Arthur finally settles on jerking Eames off, wrist moving in smooth counterpoint to Eames’ rocking.

Eames smiles down at Arthur—feeling, perhaps, fond—and picks up the pace, working Arthur hard until he’s gasping, “Come on, I wanna see. I wanna see you come.”

Eames has come countless times in dreams, and can do it practically on demand. Obviously, some situations require more effort to summon up the proper frame of mind, but for the most part it’s just another series of muscle contractions dressed up with varying amounts of fluid excretion, depending on client preferences. But with some clients—the more interesting ones, the more skilled, the ones that cross the line from mediocre-looking into attractive—it almost feels less like work. With Arthur, it’s become something like easy habit.

Eames comes with a little more semen than usual for theatricality’s sake. Arthur’s not terribly fond of jizz getting everywhere and making him messy, so Eames is sure to direct it up, landing primarily in his own chest hair, with a few stray drops reaching his chin and mouth. Eames swipes his lower lip with his tongue and Arthur moans. He comes a few thrusts and a grunt later.

Once Arthur’s body goes slack and relaxed, Eames rolls onto the bed, clean but for a slight sheen of sweat to highlight the definition of his body. He leaves his hair sex-rumpled and lips reddened.

Arthur opens his eyes a few minutes later and grins lazily, seeming to appreciate the view. “Want something to drink? I should be fully stocked here.”

“I’ll have one of whatever you have,” Eames replies, hoping it’s something he can drink without gagging.

“Water then.” Two bottles appear on the bed. “I had this one ex, he used to always crave soda after sex. On the nights he could actually make it to the kitchen, he’d drink a whole can and be burping all night. Used to drive me crazy.”

Eames chuckles as he uncaps his bottle. “Horror of horrors.”

“It was. Anyway.” Arthur props himself up on one elbow. “Want the grand tour?”

Eames lifts an eyebrow. “But of course.”

“Over there is the kitchen.” Arthur points to each part of the room. “That’s the dining area, which conveniently doubles as the living area and the foyer and the study. There’s my closet, and that’s the bathroom. Et voila. You have just experienced the dazzling wonder of my palatial home.”

Eames tosses the empty water bottle over the side of the bed and then props himself up on one elbow. “It’s a vast lair indeed.”

“You make it sound like I might be up to no good here.”

Eames raises his eyebrows. “Am I wrong?”

“I don’t have a shark that shoots death-rays, if that’s what you’re asking.” Arthur smiles, wide and easy, as he touches Eames’ chest in a manner that’s more affectionate than sexual.

“That wasn’t quite the naughty thing I was imagining, no.” Eames leans into Arthur’s touch, bends down to nip his earlobe.

Arthur laughs, makes a comment about the prevalence of sharks in dens of iniquity, and Eames replies almost nonsensically to make Arthur laugh again. They continue talking, with Eames in his own skin in this recreation of Arthur’s home, listening while Arthur tells stories about his life, his family, his past. Eames watches the animated expressions of his face, the way his hands sketch out elegant shapes in the air, and it’s companionable, relaxing. Fun.

Many of the clients Eames works with are handsome—some are even intelligent and have personalities that resemble something approaching likable. It’s all too easy to feel connected to someone when probing their most intimate fantasies, seeing them at their most vulnerable. Even easier when you’re pretending to be someone they’ve spent their whole life searching for. The lines between self-delusion and reality can become blurred—and not just on the client’s side.

Which is why he doesn’t do regulars, doesn’t let his clients meet him as ‘Eames.’ There are walls, barriers to remind him that this is all an elaborate game of mind and money.

But now, with Arthur ducking his head and smiling, warm voice threatening to light a spark somewhere Eames had thought he’d left guarded and unreachable, he’s starting to realize that his supposedly unassailable walls were always nothing but wavy lines in the sand. Shallow, fragile—washed away with a current that’s already come and gone.

* * * * * *

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Eames says when he wakes up, the smell of Arthur’s hair lingering in his nostrils.

Yusuf looks up from where he’s winding up the PASIV tubing. He doesn’t seem surprised. “Then don’t.”

“Just that easy, is it?”

Yusuf inclines his head to one side, affable charm to mask a poison-dipped dagger of a mind. They’re not friends, not really, but Eames sometimes wonders what it’d be like to have Yusuf as an enemy. He hopes the day never comes where he has to find out. “Could be.”

And so it is. The next evening, after Eames has finished packing his clothes and his meager possessions into a bag, he finds an old, disused PASIV under his bed along with a single vial of Somnacin. The PASIV is outdated, several of the pieces are broken or missing, and there’s only tubing enough to connect to one person. But for all that—it’s a start.

Eames walks out of the Scion complex and doesn’t look back.

Fic: Heat

2011-09-13T05:12:16Z

Title: Heat
Author: HeliosHyperion
Team: ROMANCE
Prompt: Overwhelmed
Word count: 2,218
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Figging

The previous fics are:
Oh, Arthur, I never thought I’d ever see you speechless
You should see the other guy
Fight Night
Reversal
Relationship Negotations

Heat

Leon/The Professional AU (Part 4/6)

2011-09-13T04:33:13Z

Title: No One Has a Photo of This Man
Author: sneaqui
Team: Angst
Prompts: Innocence, Home
Word Count: 4200 (this part)
Rating: PG-13 (this part)
Warnings: (in future parts) Major character death, sexual situations involving a minor

Beta-ed by ladderax

Part I // Part II // Part III

Eames sleeps on the uncomfortable, mid-century modern sofa in the living room, because that’s where the TV is. The soft blue glow of the screen and the murmur of mindless voices helps to calm him at night, when the absence of sound and movement would otherwise let in all the things he tries to keep from his mind.

It takes him two or three hours to fall asleep. Always. Regardless of what he’s done to try and tire himself out during the day.

He’s unusually keyed up the night after his conversation with Arthur, unsure as to whether he should be excited or nervous about the possibility of Arthur teaching him how to fight.

That night, he lays down on the couch, pulls the blanket that Arthur bought for him up to his chin and closes his eyes around eleven p.m. He shifts and stirs and gets up to take a piss several times before sleep finally pulls his thoughts away from him sometime during the small hours of the following day.

He wakes up in a panic that morning at seven a.m. when the couch begins to shake underneath him. His first thought is, Earthquake. He does the logical thing and keeps his eyes closed, remains perfectly still and wishes it to subside.

The shaking comes again, accompanied by Arthur’s voice. “Eames. C’mon. Get up.”

Eames pokes his head out of the top of the blanket, blinks against the soft morning light flooding the living room. “Arthur? What the fuck is going on?”

Arthur takes hold of the blanket and pulls it off of him, tosses it over the back of the couch. “It’s time for your first lesson.” He makes his way back into the kitchen, throwing his voice over his shoulder. “Put on some clothes. And brush your teeth.”

Five minutes later Eames finds himself sitting in the middle of the rug in the living room, still half-asleep. He picks the crusts from the corners of his eyes, balls them up and flicks them out into the room’s periphery.

Arthur kneels down on the floor in front of him. “How many push-ups can you do?”

Eames shrugs, lies, “I dunno... ‘bout fifty, I guess?”

Arthur has him do fifty. And then an extra ten.

Eames punctuates his last five pushes with loud grunts, gravity pulling the sweat down his face until it’s dripping off the tip of his nose. He collapses after the final push, rolls over onto his back, throws an arm over his eyes. “Fuck me.”

Arthur walks in from the kitchen and tosses a towel at him.

“Cheers,” Eames exhales heavily, scrubs at his forehead and the nape of his neck.

Arthur crouches down in front of him. “Alright. Time for sit ups. Feet flat on the floor.” Eames does as he’s told, and Arthur leans forward to cover the tops of Eames’s feet with his hands.

Arthur places his hands on Eames’s body while he works in order to correct his posture. He puts the tips of his fingers on Eames’s shoulder (“Relax your shoulders. Don’t use them to pull yourself up.”), the side of his palm just below his pectoral (“Don’t use anything from here up to the top of your head.”), his entire hand across Eames’s abs (“Use this. This is what you’re trying to work. Pretend that my hand is a weight, and you’re trying to push it off.”). His eyes and his voice deep and demanding, pulling Eames up and toward him.

Arthur is somewhat childlike in his inability to recognize himself as an object of desire, so Eames almost feels guilty for the heat that creeps down his spine and his belly when Arthur has his eyes and his hands on him. But guilt won’t stop him from having a very satisfying wank in the shower once this is over.

An hour later, all erotic thoughts are absent from his mind. He’s curled up on his side in the middle of the living room, trying to breathe the pain out through his teeth.

He’s pretty sure that Arthur made up a few of those exercises just to have a laugh at him. He can’t imagine ever having to use that one muscle in his lower back.

Arthur appears at his side, munching on an apple. “You alright?”

Eames winces his way up to a sitting position, legs out in front of him and head flopping forward. “I feel like I lost a fight to a lorry.”

Arthur smiles as he chews. “Sounds like your sense of humor is intact. That’s good. That’ll get you through a lot of seemingly hopeless situations.”

Eames points a wilted grin in his direction. “So how is it that you’re still alive?”

Arthur puts the apple between his teeth, freeing his hand so that he can thwack Eames lightly on the side of the head. Eames snickers and lets Arthur push his torso down towards his legs, a hand between his shoulder blades. “Time to stretch. Bend over.”

Eames has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from giggling.

Arthur then proceeds to twist Eames into several embarrassing positions. At one point, he’s got Eames on his back, his legs splayed wide open, knees and ankles a few inches off the ground. Arthur tries to put his hands on the insides of Eames’s thighs to help him stretch. Eames pushes them away roughly. “I think I can handle this one by myself, Arthur.”

Arthur puts his hands up. “Suit yourself.”

Eames attempts to make conversation while he’s lying there looking like an un-stuffed turkey. “Where did you learn all these odd forms of torture?”

“These are ancient exercises passed down to me from my ancestors, all of them trained killers.”

Eames cranes his neck up to look at him. “Really?”

Arthur laughs softly and shakes his head. “No. Not really. Most of them I learned from the guy who taught me. The rest I got from various teachers and some of the guys that I work with.”

“Who’s the guy that taught you?”

Arthur is sitting across from Eames on the surface of the coffee table, elbows on his knees and hands falling between his legs. He rubs the tips of his fingers together, looks down at them, seeming to contemplate whether or not to tell Eames the truth. He looks back up at Eames once he’s reached a decision. “My father.”

Eames’s eyebrows shoot up, and he rolls forward to a sitting position. “Really.”

“It’s not- It’s wasn’t...” Arthur tries to explain, suddenly looking much younger in his shy and abortive gestures than Eames has ever seen him. At last he says decisively, “It’s a long story.”

Eames nods, wipes the sweat from his upper lip with the side of his hand. “It always is, isn’t it?” He looks down at his feet and fiddles with his shoelaces. “We’ll save the stories about our odd relationships with our fathers for another time, yeah?”

Arthur nods quickly. He gets up and walks over to a small canvas bag that he brought into the room earlier. “Alright. Time for the jump rope.”

Eames falls on to his back and lets out a high-pitched whine like a small animal in pain.

He doesn’t even have the energy to jerk off in the shower once they’re done.

The next day, Arthur wakes him up at seven again to go for a walk.

“This is ridiculous. Why do you have to wake me up at seven a.m.? I mean, a run I could understand. But we can take a stroll around the neighborhood at literally any time.”

Arthur answers him from the kitchen where he’s cracking eggs into a metal bowl. “One: you can’t run for very long when you’re a pack-a-day smoker-”

Eames comes into the kitchen and leans against the door frame, still clad only in his boxers. He crosses his arms over his bare chest, a proud grin on his face and a disheveled pile of blonde hair atop his head. “I haven’t been smoking as much. Have you noticed? I’m down to less than ten a day.”

Arthur is not impressed. “Fewer than ten a day,” he corrects him. “And you’re gonna have to get down to none before you start running.”

Eames lets out a petulant groan and sits down at the kitchen table.

“Two,” Arthur continues, “I’m not getting you up at seven in the morning just for kicks. I’m doing it because I want us to be on the same schedule. It disturbs my sleep when you’re shuffling around the house at two a.m.” He puts a plate full of scrambled eggs and a single piece of wheat toast down in front of Eames.

Eames smears butter all over his toast and takes a loud bite. “I’ve an idea for how you could solve that little problem: not sleep in a chair.”

Arthur doesn’t even turn from where he’s pushing his own eggs around in the pan with a spatula. He just smiles and flicks a glob of egg over his shoulder in Eames’s direction. It lands precisely in the middle of Eames’s forehead. “Oi!”

They go for a walk, heading south towards the Theater District where the buildings and the spaces between them become wider. Past the 10 freeway where the skyscrapers give way to dilapidated Victorian homes. Overgrown front yards and peeling blue trim. Uncollected newspapers littering front walkways.

At some point, Eames speaks up. “We should probably turn around before we get too far south, yeah? We keep going like this, and we’ll end up in the jungle.”

Arthur peers over at him but keeps walking. “The jungle?”

“South Central,” Eames explains. He widens his stance, puffs his chest out a bit and proceeds to recite a series of words in a lazy, steady rhythm. “Then we played bones, and I'm yellin domino! Plus nobody I know got killed in South Central L.A. Today was a good day.”

Arthur looks over at Eames who’s nodding his head to a beat that only he can hear. “Is that a... rap?”

Eames chuckles. “Fuck, mate. You need to get out more. That song is older than I am.”

Arthur looks down at his boots where they’re hitting the pavement. “I get out.”

“No you don’t. I haven’t seen you leave the house to do anything other than buy groceries for the past three weeks.”

Arthur kicks a stone out of his path. “So?”

“So surely I’m not that enthralling of a human being.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Eames. Your performance of ‘When Doves Cry’ in the shower the other day was really something.”

“You heard that?”

“It’s a small apartment.”

“Damn.” Eames jumps down off the sidewalk to grab a glass bottle out of the street and tosses it toward a nearby chain link fence. “But there are things that you do just for fun, yeah? Just ‘cause you enjoy doing them? Aside from cleaning your guns.”

“Yes, Eames. Despite what you may think, I am, in fact, human.”

“So what do you do?”

Arthur shrugs. “I dunno. Nothing... really interesting.”

“You must find it interesting. Otherwise you wouldn’t do it. So, what? What do you do with your free time when you’re not busy taking care of sad orphans?”

Eames watches Arthur as he lowers his head and purses his lips in thought, his spine and his shoulders curving inward in an uncharacteristically shy posture.

Arthur shrugs. “I just... go places. Around the city.”

“Where do you go?”

Arthur stops walking abruptly and turns to Eames, his spine straightening out so he can look down at him. “You’re really not gonna drop this are you?”

Eames smiles. “No, I’m not.”

Arthur nods, turns his head in the direction they’ve been walking. “Alright,” he sighs. “Keep walking this way. I’ll show you.”

Twenty minutes later, they come to a four-laned avenue cut down the middle by train tracks. Beyond it is a long, white building pocked with a series of small windows. In front of it is a behemoth bronze sculpture of a Tyrannosaurus rex attempting to sideswipe a Triceratops.

Eames lets out a low, appreciative whistle. “Is this, like, a museum or something?”

“This is the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County,” Arthur says almost proudly.

“So they got dinosaurs and stuff like that?”

“Yes.”

Eames smiles, bobs his head. “Safe.”

They step inside the building and into a low-lit rotunda. At its center stands the fossilized version of the dinosaur sculpture out front. Ancient fauna engaged in a futile fight for survival. Futile because, regardless of the outcome, both animals as well as their kin are all long-dead.

Eames follows Arthur through a series of dark, low-ceilinged galleries. The only light comes from wide windows that look out onto sunny, artificial landscapes. Dioramas filled with giant, glass-eyed animals killed and stuffed half a century ago and put back into their natural habitats.

A couple of rooms in, Eames hunches his shoulders and pulls his jacket closed, crosses his arms across his chest. “Is the whole museum like this? It’s starting to creep me out.”

Arthur smiles into the empty, reflective eyes of a lowland gorilla. “Really? I like it.”

Eames sneaks away a few minutes later. Arthur either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

Eames follows a small, nuclear family into a tall, brightly-lit room filled with the fossils of weird, ancient mammals. The atmosphere in here is much more to his liking. Cleaner and safer. The lines between science and morality more clearly defined.

He studies every skeleton, reads every plaque and pushes every button, ignoring the line of people that begins to form behind him. Excitable children and strung-out parents with aching feet.

Once finished, he sits and stares at the skeleton of a Paleoparadoxia for a full ten minutes; then he goes in search of Arthur.

Eames finds him in one of the rooms off the main rotunda. It’s filled with glittering gems and dull rocks, and Arthur is the only person in the room.

Eames stands in the entryway for a couple minutes and observes him gazing in wonder at the display in front of him. Lips parted and eyes illuminated, revealing the rich mahogany brown of his irises. His hands are folded neatly in front of him, and his neck is craned forward, nose almost touching the glass that surrounds a small ribbon of silver, the shape of a bird in flight. As unconscious of its own beauty as the man standing in front of it.

Eames has never met someone so honest as Arthur. He’s dangerous is so many ways but safe in all the ways that really matter. He lacks the artifice and ulterior motives that dictate the behavior of almost every other person that Eames has ever met.

Eames walks towards him slowly, not wanting to interrupt his reverie.

Arthur hears him approach, of course, and smiles, honestly happy.

Eames can’t help but smile back. “Of course you would be in the most boring room in the museum.”

“It’s not boring,” Arthur says, still smiling. “We have as much in common with the rocks in here as we do with the mammals out there.”

Eames leans forward to look at the silver wire, his posture mimicking Arthur’s. “How’s that?”

Arthur turns to face him, their faces now mere inches apart. He whispers, as if imparting to Eames an important secret. “Did you know that there’s silver in our bodies?”

“You mean, like, right now?”

“I mean on an atomic level. Most of the atoms in the human body are composed of five chemical elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and calcium.” Arthur’s smile grows wider. “But about half of all the other elements are in there too. Silver, gold, copper, chlorine, mercury, tin, manganese, sulfur...”

Eames chews on his bottom lip. “How is that possible?”

“It’s because we all come from the same place.”

Eames turns to look at him. “And where’s that?”

Arthur grins so wide that his dimples appear. “The stars.”

As the days pass, Arthur becomes both more and less of an enigma to Eames.

His habits reveal him to be both charmingly and frustratingly human. Eames finds it endearing that Arthur mumbles in his sleep and gets cranky on days when it’s cloudy but not raining.

Eames finds it less endearing that Arthur is a complete slob. He neglects to take his dirty clothes out of the bathroom once he’s finished showering and leaves his dishes out on the counter instead of washing them or even putting them in the sink.

Their differing standards of cleanliness lead to a couple of screaming arguments. A cockroach crawls out of the bathtub drain one day just after Eames has finished showering. He throws a towel around his waist and marches out of the bathroom, water dripping down his body and leaving puddles on the floor. Puddles that he will later have to clean up.

He finds Arthur sitting in his chair, reading Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. Eames goes off on him.

The argument ends with Arthur saying to Eames, heavy breath flaring his nostrils, “No one’s forcing you to stay here. Find someone else to live with if you find me so disgusting.”

Eames storms out of the room, throws a sweatshirt and some baggy jeans on without even bothering to dry himself off properly. He slams the door on his way out, as he always does. And as always, he returns a couple hours later.

He walks past Arthur and into the apartment without a word.

Arthur is the first to break the silence. “You don’t smell like smoke,” he says softly.

Eames turns to look at him, nods and holds his chin up defiantly, “Haven’t had a cig in three days.”

Arthur regards him silently for a moment and then allows himself a small smile. “Good.” He clears his throat. “That’s great. You should be proud of yourself.”

Eames swallows the sudden urge to ask, Are you proud of me? Instead he nods and turns to walk into the living room.

Just then Arthur speaks up, “I’m sorry about what I said earlier.” Eames turns around, but Arthur is pointedly avoiding his gaze. “It was... unnecessarily mean.”

Eames puts his hands in his pockets, leans against the entryway. “I’m sorry too,” he sighs. “I don’t know why I yelled at you like that.” He looks down at the floor and pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “It’s always the little things that set you off, isn’t it? It’s never the big thing that you’re actually upset about.”

“What are you actually upset about?” Arthur asks him.

Eames keeps his eyes on the floor. “It’s her birthday tomorrow. Or it would be, rather... if she were still...”

“Your sister?”

Eames nods.

Arthur shifts his weight nervously from one foot to the other, remains silent.

Eames continues, “You know what’s really fucked up? Sometimes... sometimes I used to wish that they’d all just disappear. Just pack up and take off. Leave me alone.”

“Why-” Arthur clears his throat. “Why would you want to be left alone?”

“I dunno... It’s just- It’s hard work taking care of teenage girl and a drunk mother.” Eames breathes out a mirthless laugh. “Guess I got my wish.”

“Eames. You’re not- Everyone has those thoughts.”

Eames looks up at him. “Do they?”

Arthur opens his mouth, closes it, clears his throat. “My... my dad died when I was nineteen. And there was... there was a part of me that was relieved. Because it meant that I could be myself. In a way that I wasn’t able to be when he was around.”

Eames considers this and then says, “I feel that way sometimes. I want to be someone different than I was before. Someone stronger. Someone more capable. Someone who... doesn’t just let things happen.”

“You can be whoever you want to be, Eames,” Arthur assures him. “But just- Just do me a favor?”

Eames lifts his eyebrows at him.

Arthur continues. “Don’t try to be me.”

Eames shakes his head. “I don’t- I don’t want to be you, Arthur.”

Arthur’s features fall minutely at Eames’s words. He tries to hide it by looking down at the floor.

Eames clarifies. “I’m perfectly happy just to be around you.”

Arthur’s gaze snaps up to catch Eames’s eyes, but Eames is already turning away from him to walk into the other room. He pauses on his way out, turns his head over his shoulder and says, “You’re lovely, Arthur. I hope you realize that.” He doesn’t wait for Arthur to respond, just walks into the living room and collapses on the couch in his clothes.

Arthur stays true to his word, and the next day, he takes Eames on a run.

The day after that, he begins to teach Eames how to fight.

They’re standing in the middle of the living room, the couch and the mattress that Arthur recently bought for him pushed off to the side. Arthur has taped several layers of blankets to the floor in lieu of mats.

Eames stands facing him, shoulders hunched and fists up.

Arthur quirks an eyebrow at him, smiles. “Eames, don’t get ahead of yourself. Put your fists down.”

Eames stares at him for a moment and then drops his hands.

Arthur clears his throat. “Okay. Basics.” He gestures to Eames’s legs. “I noticed you had your knees locked. Don’t do that.”

Eames nods. “Okay.”

Arthur makes several aborted gestures with his hands, opens his mouth to speak and then closes it. “Okay. The way you need to think about it is...” Arthur trails off, stares up at the ceiling for a moment before asking Eames, “Do you dance?”

“What?”

“Do you dance? You know... go out to places with your friends or whatever...”

Eames shrugs. “I have. Yeah.”

“Show me how you stand when you’re getting ready to dance.”

Eames thinks for a moment, and then he hunches his shoulders a bit, curves his spine and bends his knees in a shallow plie.

“Good!” Arthur says. “That’s good. See, what you’re trying to do is keep your muscles relaxed but at the ready. Just like with dancing, you never want to allow your muscles to tense up completely. You need to be ready in case your opponent attempts to throw you off balance. Loss of balance and your center of gravity is just as dangerous as a forceful hit. Does that make sense?”

Eames smiles, nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it does, actually.”

“Okay. Now I’m going to give you an example.”

Eames’s face lights up. “Yeah?”

Arthur chuckles. “I thought you’d like that.” Arthur doesn’t change his stance except to take his hands out of his pockets. “Throw a punch at me.”

Eames nods, brings his fists up and begins to bounce on the balls of his toes a bit. “Alright. You ready?”

“Yes, Eames. I’m ready.”

Eames doesn’t even get the chance to fully extend his arm before he feels a dull ache in his forearm, and his right leg disappears from underneath him.

He finds himself on his back almost instantly, staring up at Arthur’s back.

Arthur turns around and smiles down at him. “That is the easiest and least dangerous way I could take you down.”

“Huh.” Eames considers what just occurred from his supine position. “Do you think you could show me again? I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Of course. I’ll show you one more time. Slower. And then you get another lecture on proper breath control.”

Eames bounces up to standing, grins. “I look forward to it.”

The next day, Eames wakes up to see Arthur standing at the kitchen table, shutting the clasps on his leather case. He’s wearing his long gray coat, and his hair is slicked back.

He looks up when Eames enters the room. He rubs his hands together, looks down at the floor, his expression almost apologetic. “I... I have some things that I need to take care of.”

Eames nods. “Alright. D’you think I should go for a run today?”

Arthur looks up at him, and his features relax a bit. “Yeah... yeah, actually, why don’t you just go for a walk. Your muscles could use the rest.”

“Alright.” Eames crosses his arms over his chest. “Be careful, yeah?”

Arthur stares at him for a moment, opens his mouth to say something and then shuts it. He grabs his case and walks out the door, closing it softly behind him.

Eames walks a two-mile loop through downtown. On his way back to the apartment, he stops at a corner store to pick up a carton of milk and some toilet paper.

He’s waiting in line to pay, and his eyes catch on a stack of Los Angeles Times newspapers near the counter. He walks closer to check out the headlines, and his breath catches in his throat when he sees the photo on the front page.

It’s a picture of a man shaking hands with a line of police officers in uniform. He has pale skin and eyes the color of ice, and he looks a bit more composed than the last time Arthur saw him. Just the sight of him standing there smiling as if he didn’t just murder a thirteen-year-old girl a couple of weeks ago turns the blood in Eames’s veins to fire.

Eames’ eyes skim down to the caption. They catch on the name Detective Robert Fischer.

Fic: All is Violent, All is Bright 9/11

2011-09-12T04:02:36Z

Fic: All is Violent, All is Bright 9/11
Title: All is Violent, All is Bright 9/11
Author: sparrow_hubris
Team: ANGST
Prompt: innocence
Word count: 2,046 this part
Rating: PG-13 - NC-17 (This part PG-13)
Warnings: Underage 15/17, Apocalypse & general destruction, Violence,
Mentions of death, violence towards animals (hunting: prev parts )
Betas sneaqui
Summary: Apocalypse AU / a.k.a bb!Survival / a.k.a. cockblockalypse!
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

______

Spring creeps over Vancouver like ivy, crawling out as they days become longer. The snow melts quickly, leaving mud and puddles in its wake. The hike to their traps is no less cumbersome in the mud than in the snow, but the animals have emerged from their winter hideaways and so daily checks are necessary.

Arthur has never been fond of mud, the way it clings to his shoes and the bottoms of his pants like viscous lemmings bent on trapping his feet to the ground. He feels soiled and disheveled. The moisture penetrates everything, and they have to be careful to air out their shoes so as to not develop trench foot. He’s thankful that he has several pairs to alternate between but makes a note to look for more shoes the next time they scavenge.

The last few weeks with Eames have been uneventful, for which Arthur is actually thankful. Most of the awkwardness between them has slowly disappeared. His nightmares seem to have disappeared, since he’s only had one in the last two weeks or so. He still dreams of Eames but has been able to somehow convince his sleeping body to face his back to Eames’ chest. He has not woken up grinding on his friend.

Controlling his thoughts in the daytime is more difficult. It takes nearly all of his energy direct his thoughts away from focusing on the way Eames’ lips look, plush and inviting, imagining them pressed against the hollow of his own neck. He fights every urge to let his fingers linger over the growing expanse of Eames’ exposed skin as the weather warms. He is hyper aware of Eames’ proximity at all times, wishing for Eames to get closer, to brush against him in an electrifying contact of their bodies. Arthur dreads it as well, not trusting himself to control his own reactions. He’s caught in a limbo of warring emotions inside, while outwardly pretending that everything is okay.

Arthur slips up often. During a hike, he holds on a little to long when he nearly trips, and Eames catches his hand to steady him. He finds himself staring at Eames, simply watching the way he moves, fluidly but with a sense of determination. Arthur notes the way Eames’ shoulders hunch forward and his neck stretches long when he’s thinking, chewing on a nail or rolling a leaf-stem between his lips. Arthur notices that Eames’ shoulders pull back when he’s made a joke. Arthur finds himself smiling at the smallest things, unable to help the way his lips automatically turn up when Eames grins at him or does something nice. He stumbles over his words when he finds himself revealing too much. He tries to change the subject, and Eames lets him though he often gives Arthur a confused, knowing look.

Arthur can’t help himself sometimes, he reaches out to place a palm on Eames’ lower back as he moves behind him to reach for something. Eames flinches away a little but doesn’t say anything. Eames will give Arthur a pained look whenever he catches Arthur staring. He lets Arthur get away with it, excuse it as zoning out though.

The weather has been getting nicer, so it’s easier for Arthur to slip away at night and wander the woods. Sometimes it’s just to calm himself, to clear his head in the dark, silent, woods. Sometimes he jerks off with his palm pressed against the rough bark of a tree and Eames’ name caught on his tongue as a whisper.

Whenever he gets back, he slips off his shoes, stows his knife and curls up next to Eames, taking in Eames’ heady scent, willing himself to sleep without dreams. Every morning Arthur starts the whole process again, suppressing his feelings, picking his words carefully, controlling his wandering hands.

One day, Eames is telling Arthur a funny story, and when Arthur laughs and tips his head to Eames’ shoulder, he runs his hand down Eames arm without thinking. He feels Eames tense beside him. Snatching his hand away, Arthur rights himself, spine rigid and ears burning hot with embarrassment. Eames doesn’t let it go this time, like he has every other time Arthur has slipped up.

“You gotta stop touching me like that, mate,” Eames says, voice strained in an attempt to be delicate.

Arthur knows Eames must be hiding his disgust.

“Sorry,” Arthur blurts as he stands quickly. He rubs his hands down his pants and tries to come up with more to say but finds he has nothing. He’s horrified by his actions.“Sorry,” he huffs out again, and before he says something stupid, he walks away.

“Hey! Hey, Arthur, sorry, mate. I didn’t mean it like that!” Eames calls after him, but Arthur ignores him. It doesn’t matter what Eames says, Eames has been holding his tongue, Arthur knows, and he shouldn’t have to do that. Arthur should be able to control himself. He grabs a gun on his way out of camp and heads into the woods. Hunting, or at least hiking, will help to calm him down.

Arthur’s shoes slip through the moss and mud as he stalks through the woods. He doesn’t see any animals, but he guesses that’s to be expected since he’s not being particularly stealthy. He’s a little too worked up to care. After about an hour of hiking, he’s finally ready to take responsibility for his actions. Arthur has been trying hard to keep his feelings hidden, he could have tried harder to keep his feelings hidden. He doesn’t want to push Eames away. Without Eames, Arthur doesn’t know what his life would be like; he can’t picture it now. So he makes a decision and locks away everything inside of himself. He promises himself that he won’t touch Eames again. If he’s having a hard time, he’ll walk away, he’ll get his head on straight. Eames deserves that much.

It’s nearly nightfall by the time Arthur returns to camp. Eames is stirring food over the fire, and he looks tense, worried even. When he hears Arthur approach he looks up.

“Jesus, Arthur, I’m sorry I …”

Arthur cuts him off. “No, it’s my fault. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Can we just forget about it?”

Eames looks at him with a scrutinizing gaze. He looks like he wants to say no, that he wants to talk about it which Arthur really does not want to do. After a moment, Eames finally acquiesces with a nod. Dinner is mostly silent, and that night, Arthur goes back to keeping his distance from Eames.

Arthur’s struggle to not touch and not stare is agonizingly difficult. He has to catch himself all the time. It’s worse than before. It’s worse because last time Eames hadn't said anything, and a little part of Arthur had held some hope that he could have more, even though deep down he knew he couldn’t. This time Eames had asked him to stop.

Their every interaction becomes strained. Eames withdraws, becomes more irritable, almost distraught at times. It’s as if he can tell that Arthur still wants to touch him. For the first time in a long time, Arthur wishes that there were more people, so that Eames could go find friends that didn’t make him uncomfortable. So that Eames could be happy somewhere else instead of stuck here with him. Every time Arthur stops himself from touching Eames, Eames’ face furrows in frustration, so Arthur tries harder. He keeps his distance completely, keeping a few feet between them whenever he can.

Arthur grows frustrated. He snaps angrily at everything. Trying to curb is behavior takes so much effort. They fight over everything. Stories that used to entertain him infuriate him. They’re full of lies, and it reminds him once again that Eames never wanted to be close enough to share, to be honest and open. Eames snaps back, trying to make fun at first, and lighten the mood, but with venom as time goes on. Arthur condescends, and Eames dishes sarcasm right back.

Finally, after a screaming match over something insignificant, Eames snaps. “Fuck it,” he says. “I’m leaving. You’re being a prat lately, and I can’t take anymore.”

Arthur snaps his jaw shut, and his stomach seizes up like he’s been kicked. He doesn’t know why he didn’t expect this. It is what he’s been trying to do isn’t it? Drive Eames away?

Eames is pacing like a caged animal, the muscle in his jaw jumping beneath his skin. Arthur doesn’t know what to say, because as much as he thought he wanted this, Eames saying it hurts like knife being driven through his heart.

Arthur watches dumbly as Eames hastily shoves supplies into a bag, wanting to stop him. Clenching his fists into tight balls, he grits his teeth and stands silently. This is for the best, he keeps telling himself. But the mantra doesn’t stop his racing heart and the bitter taste of regret in his mouth.

Arthur half hopes that Eames’ anger will burn off by the time he’s done packing. That Eames’ resolve will dissipate and he will sit down with a sigh, and they’ll talk it out. But Eames grabs his rifle, hauls his pack onto his shoulder and walks out of camp without so much as a goodbye. Arthur is left staring after him helplessly.

It’s not even evening before Arthur feels the twinge of loneliness. The air is heavy and cool as it settles over camp. Selfishly, Arthur thinks that the bed will be cold tonight. He would be grateful that the weather is warming if he could be grateful for anything right now. He wonders where Eames will go. Probably back to wherever he was holed up before. Eames had said that he didn’t want Arthur to know where his old place was, in case anything like this ever happened. Arthur hates that he proved Eames right.

It takes two weeks for Arthur to admit that pushing Eames away was a mistake. He knew it was terrible the very instant Eames decided to leave, but he had though he could make himself get over it. He’s finding that he can’t. The first two nights are okay. Arthur is able to tell himself that it’s a good thing. He tries convincing himself that it feels like a relief to have a night off from Eames. But every night it gets harder. Every night he goes to bed alone. Every night he wishes Eames were there.

The days aren’t any better. Arthur sighs out a bored melody that he hasn’t heard in ages, just to break the silence. Busying himself doesn’t take his mind off of everything he should have done differently. The thing that breaks him is the sketch he finds in the book Eames had been reading. Arthur picks it up on a whim, reading to keep his mind occupied. Reading this book because it had been Eames, at least temporarily. And then, in the half page at the end of chapter four, he finds a sketch of himself. It’s gestural, loose lines of varying weight, but at the same time it’s intimately detailed. The profile is soft grey punctuated with deep dark lines indicating the angle of his jaw. It’s beautiful.

Arthur wishes he had known Eames was sketching him. He wishes he had known that Eames had been staring at him like this, obviously studying him. He wonders what he gave away in those moments where he was oblivious to Eames’observation.

What if what Eames saw is what pushed him away? Because the drawing is so open. Arthur can see the happiness plain as day on his own face. It’s clear that care went into this drawing because it’s nearly finished. Eames spent time perfecting this. Eames wouldn’t spend so much time studying something he hates would he?

A burst of hope floods his system like warm syrup. He knows what he has to do. He has to find Eames. Suddenly Arthur is stricken with the a strong sense of déjà vu. He shakes his head to clear the stray thought away. Tomorrow he’ll go into the city. He doesn’t care if it takes weeks to do it. He will find Eames.

part 10

Fic: BYOB and Other Life Lessons

2011-09-10T04:13:51Z

Title: BYOB and Other Life Lessons
Author: HeliosHyperion
Team: ROMANCE
Prompt: Forever
Word count: 1,076
Rating: PG
Warnings: Alcohol?

This is a sequel to Don't Come to Paris, Arthur's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, The Teenage Queen, the Loaded Gun, and Pay My Respects to Grace and Virtue.

I’m all out of alcohol and I still have to be here.

Fic: Relationship Negotiations

2011-09-10T02:05:54Z

Title: Relationship Negotiations
Author: HeliosHyperion
Team: ROMANCE
Prompt: Naked/Sex
Word count: 2,012
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, talking about kinky sex

The previous fics are untitled fics Oh, Arthur, I never thought I’d ever see you speechless and You should see the other guy, and titled fics Fight Night and Reversal.

Jesus, Arthur, what kinds of boyfriends have you had?

[Fic] Baby, Please Remember Me Once More - Part Six

2011-09-09T03:21:46Z

Title: Baby, Please Remember Me Once More
Author: duckgirlie
Team: ROMANCE!
Prompt: devotion, home.
Summary: “Sorry. I know you? I mean, of course I know you, at least a bit. Your number’s in my wallet. But I don’t know you, not at all.”
Word Count: ~2200 (this part)
Rated: PG
Notes: <3 to immoral_crow for her help.

one | two | three | four | five

Arthur carefully walked into the room.

“They're releasing him tomorrow.”

“Do we have any answers yet?” Ariadne asked.

“Not really.” Yusuf pulled his notebook out. “We can't entirely rule out a targeted attack, but right now, it's looked more and more likely that this is just what it appears to be – retrograde amnesia triggered by head trauma.”

“Does that mean we can't do anything?” she asked.

“Nothing definite, no. Just... support him, I guess.”

“So, we just... wait around, see if he remembers us?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Yusuf smiled at her sadly.

“It's not that easy,” Cobb said.

He turned towards a whiteboard on the wall, and started drawing a pattern of circles.

“Sometimes, people don't regain any of the emotions for certain memories, just a blank recollection of the details. Some memories are just emotion, nothing else. But the thing about memory is, it doesn't work in a straight line. We don't remember everything, every time we see it. Lots of memories are made up of layers of smaller ones – we remember the colour of our front door, the amount of windows in our house – all separately, and our brain knits them together. Some people who are regaining their memories find their brain has stiched parts together that don't match, and they have to try and use other memories to figure out which bits go where. But Eames...”

He signed and put his marker down. Arthur continued the sentence.

“But Eames isn't Eames in lots of his memories.”

“No.” Cobb said. “And I don't know how he's going to re-create an internal timeline when so much of it just shouldn't exist.”

*****

David looked out the window as Arthur drove up a narrow driveway towards a house. There was something very slightly niggling in the back of his mind as he carefully climbed out of the car and hobbled towards the door. Arthur followed from the car, unlocked the door, and stood aside to let him in.

David walked through the hallway to the kitchen, and paused. The niggling was back. He turned to look around the kitchen again, before turning back to Arthur, who was standing unobtrusively in the hallway.

“This... isn't my house.”

Something flashed across Arthur's face. “Do you remem–“

“No, not... Not properly, yeah? It's like... you know when you order coke in a restaurant, but they just bring you pepsi without checking, and you can tell there's something wrong, but you can't always tell what? It's like that.”

Arthur smiled slightly, and David smiled back. “Plus, you have the keys.”

Arthur glanced down at the keys in his hand. “I guess you're right. Though I could easily have the keys to your place as well.”

David smiled again. “Do I need that much taking care of?”

Arthur didn't answer, instead carefully squeezing past David into the kitchen.

“The doctor said you need to eat small, spaced out meals. So you can still get lots of sleep without interfering with food, or the food interfering with sleep. If you give me a couple of minutes, I'll make you something.”

He followed Arthur into the kitchen, managed to get himself into one of the high chairs by the centre island, and watched as Arthur carefully set out ingredients and made a cheese omelette.

“I know you think egg-white omelettes are an affront to food, but you're supposed to be on a high-protein diet. I left some yolk in there though, so I'm sure you can manage to choke it down.”

There was a slight disconnect between Arthur's tone and his words that David couldn't quite place. But it was probably just another thing lost in his memory, so he didn't try that hard to figure it out. If he was going to remember it, he'd remember it, eventually. If not, it looked like he'd have time to figure it out again, if he was staying here.

“Do you have any taba–“

Arthur placed a small bottle in front of him before he could even finish asking.

“But you haven't smoked in five years, so go easy on it.”

“Thank you.”

As he ate, he watched Arthur move around the kitchen, adding and checking things off a long list in his notebook. When he was finally done updating whatever it was, he switched the kettle on and turned back to David.

“I'll make some coffee – I don't have any of your teabags around – and you're okay to have a little, but not too much. Is there anything else I can get you?”

David wiped his hands nervously on his jeans. “No, I'm great. But you... You know you don't have to take care of me, right? I mean – not that I don't appreciate it, and all, it's fantastic – but you've got shit to get done, yeah? And I just mean that... I'm sure I could figure something out, yeah? If you wanted to get back to that.”

Arthur stared at him across the kitchen. “When you get your memories back, you're going to realise what a ridiculous statement that was, so I'm going to pretend you didn't say it. Eat your omelette.”

He looked down at his plate, slightly embarrassed for reasons he couldn't quite discern. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Thanks.”

When he finished his omelette, Arthur set a cup of coffee in front of him, and when he tasted it he sighed happily.

“Not even my mum ever gets it right.”

“I have an eye for details. And anyway, you didn't really start drinking coffee until the – until after you moved out. She always gets your tea right.”

He nodded, and yawned.

“There's a bed made up for you, third door on the left, upstairs. You can lock the door if you want, but it might be better not to, just in case you manage to hurt yourself again.”

David looked down at his fingers. “Um, you're not going to...try and get into my dreams again, are you? I didn't really like it, last time.”

“I promise. Not without asking you first, not again. That was just... an emergency.”

“Okay.”

He got up, and walked carefully to the door. He paused to re-adjust his crutches, and something on the wall caught his eye. There was another odd feeling in the back of his mind.

“What's wrong? Are you–“

“No, I'm fine. It's just...” David looked embarrassed. “You... you know your Bacon's a fake, right? I mean, you probably do, you don't look like you've got 10 million lying about – though if we're dodgy you might be trying for subtle – and you've no security on it, so... But you do, right? You didn't pay loads of money for that, right?”

Another odd look flashed across Arthur's face. “Yes. I know it's a fake. How did you? Do you remem –“

“No, I don't. I just know because well... It's obvious, yeah? I mean, maybe not if you didn't know much about it – the paintwork's pretty awesome, yeah? - but it's like, six inches too big. Which is kind of stupid, isn't it? What's the point of going through all that effort to get the brushwork perfect, but then making it so that anyone who knew anything about the original would spot it immediately? Kind of a bollocks attempt at forging.”

Arthur looked over at the painting for a long second, before turning back to the counter.

“It wasn't supposed to be a workable forgery. It was kind of a... private joke, between me and... the painter.”

David grinned. “That's good. For a second there, I was worried that maybe you'd just never had anyone who knew their shit back here, and you really didn't know. But then I figure Eames has been back here at somepoint, and he'd have known, yeah?”

“Yeah. He... He would.”

David yawned again. “Cool. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

*****

Arthur woke up the next morning to a silent house. Which was odd, because in all the years he'd know him, silent was not a word he'd have used to describe Eames. He'd only known David – this David, anyway, because the David Arthur first met was different already – for less then a week, but he was pretty sure silent wasn't the word there either.

It was probably all the medication, forcing sleep on him. Which was good, he needed sleep.

Arthur found himself creeping carefully through the hallway and down the stairs, trying his best not to disturb Eames. He needn't have worried though – he was in the kitchen alone for less then five minutes before Eames shuffled in, grinning widely.

“Good morning. Do you want some –“

“I remembered something!” Eames cut him off.

For a second, Arthur's mind flashed through countless shared memories, wondering which one it was he'd gotten back – which one he hoped Eames got back.

“That's great. Do you mind if I ask...?”

“It was about Ariadne.”

Arthur's mind slowed down. Oh.

“We were in... I'm gonna say Paris? Though I'm not completely sure. And we were in a café, and she was ordering something, and she had this like, totally perfect schoolbook French, so I was teasing her about that, and she was blushing and kept trying to swear at me, but it wasn't quite working for her.”

“Oh. Okay. That was probably about... two years ago. Does anything else stick out?”

Eames paused to think for a moment. “I think I felt... kind of nervous and excited all at the same time. I mean, if I didn't know any better, I'd have said I fancied her, because it was kind of like that, but different.”

“Definitely two years ago, then. We had... a big job. It's near when you first met her, I'd expect.”

“What kind of job? That dreaming stuff?”

“Yeah. I'd explain more, but...”

“Don't bother.” Eames waved him off. “This is good though, yeah? It means I'm not completely broken.”

“No one ever said you were completely broken, Ea – David. But yes, it's good. Everything you can get back is good. Everyone's coming over later today, try and figure some more things out. You can tell Ariadne then, she'll be thrilled.”

“Yeah?” Eames smiled happily. “Awesome.”

*****

Arthur had been right about Ariadne, David thought as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Oh, shit. Am I hurting you?”

He pulled back slightly. “No, it's fine. I'm glad you're happy. It's great, yeah?”

She grasped his hand gently and pulled him onto the couch. “You should sit, it's good for you. You know, I remember that day? It was... a week after you got to Paris, and you dragged me out to this tiny patisserie because you swore blind they had the absolute best almond croissants in Paris. We had to wait in line for half an hour, then you made me order even though you knew the owner, and then you laughed at my French.”

“Wow. That's kind of shit of him. Me, I mean. Kind of shit of me.”

Ariadne shrugged. “It was a bit. I'd been warned though, so it wasn't that bad.”

“People had to warn you about me? That's even more shit.”

“Not like... He'll kill you, or punch you, or steal everything you own, or anything. Just that you had... a way about you.”

“So... He's – I'm – kind of a right wanker.”

“A bit, I guess. No one minds though, not really. It's fine.”

David sank bank into the couch and sighed. “Right. Sure. It's fine.”

*****

Arthur looked at Cobb carefully.

“What do you think it means though, that he remembered her first?”

“I don't re–“

“Is it just that he has less memories of her? Or that his first memory of her is the most recent? Or that they're probably all mostly positive memories, and that's what he's latching on too? Or that maybe–“

“Arthur.” Cobb cut him off with a hand on his shoulder. “You're trying to apply logic to this. There is no logic here, none that we can divine, anyway. If his memory regain has a pattern, we won't know it until it's over, but it probably doesn't. It could be something completely random that's triggered this, so don't... don't get yourself worked up over it. If he gets more memories back, odds are you'll be in one of them. He'll remember you, eventually. You just have to wait.

“I know. I know, it's just...” Arthur looked through the kitchen door to Ariande and Eames talking on the cough. “I just wish I could control the order he remembers me.”

to be continued

[Fic] There Are No Elephants In This Room, Only In Your Head

2011-09-08T22:21:14Z

Title:There Are No Elephants In This Room, Only In Your Head
Chapter: Two (2,700 words) (Follows All You Think About Is Elephants. It's Pathetic.)
Rating: NC-17
Team: Angst!
Prompts: Jealousy, sex, hell
Pairings/Characters: Arthur/Eames, Arthur/Robert, Eames/Robert, Arthur/Projections, the rest of the team appears.
Warnings: Violence, graphic sex, underage drinking and sex, group sex, dub-con, non-con, attempted suicide, other possibly triggering content.
Summary: Of all the things Arthur thought might tear him and Eames apart, he never expected it to be Robert Fischer. Canonverse AU that takes place mid-movie.
Notes: C&C Welcome and appreciated. Many thanks and much love to sneaqui for being my beta <3

I'm not going to have this finished by the end of posting in September, but I will be continuing it (slowly, thanks to ibb) over at AO3 and in my LJ using the tag elephants.

[FIC] Battaglia Con Brio, part 3/4

2011-09-07T04:52:55Z

Title: Battaglia Con Brio (3/4)
Author: ladderax
Word Count: ~8,000 this part; roughly 40,000 over all
Team: Angst(y romance)
Prompts: Balcony, Lies
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: brief mentions of violence, physical trauma, hurt/comfort
Summary: When brilliant, controversial and irreverent musical prodigy Eames arrives at the court of the Emperor of Marchia, he immediately gets on the bad side of the Emperor’s official composer, Arthur, who slowly begins to plot to destroy him. But why is Eames so difficult to destroy?
The premise is based on the Peter Shaffer play/Milos Forman film “Amadeus”, but the plot often diverges quite wildly, and the ending is happy. However, it does include jealousy; composers sniping at each other; giggling, dirty-minded creatures; and ghostly mysterious figures in black.
Beta: eternalsojourn
Notes: Title is an Italian musical term meaning “battle, with spirit”.
The fourth part will exist very soon.

Part 2

It was the following Sunday, when Arthur attended church with Cobb and Ariadne, that he first saw the woman in black.

When the priest began the homily, Arthur’s eyes kept drifting to the stained-glass windows. They were the most astonishing of their kind in all of Marchia. The glass was of the purest, most piercing color; the pieces were cut so exquisitely they were rumored to have been shaped by angelic knives. What kinds of knives do angels have? he remembered Cobb asking one night at dinner. No, Mal, don’t laugh, I’m serious. Would an angel’s knife be made of earthly matter, or spiritual?

When he was finally able to tear his eyes away from the mouth of John the Baptist, Arthur glanced back and became aware of the presence of a woman who looked as if she might understand something about angelic knives.

She sat alone, in the second to last pew.

She wore a black gown, and an opaque black mantilla covered most of her face. Only one eye was visible between the panels of the mantilla. A huge, grey eye, swathed in shadow, full of unconquerable sadness. An eye that met his before he could look away to safety. When he turned slowly back around, she was gone.

§

The masked ball was a violently-colored whirlpool of flesh and fabric and pointy things. Huge skirts, belonging to both men and women, brushed against Arthur’s ankles. Fingernails got hooked on his jacket, monkeys and bright birds screeched from shoulders, and there was a layer of trampled masks, ribbons and slippers underfoot which got mashed like grapes as people danced and chased and fled monsters of all kinds. Arthur swore he saw a trail of blood streaked across several of the abandoned-object islands on the floor, and he tried not to wonder further.

Each time Arthur came to one of these things he was struck mostly by the unpleasant combined smell of all those bodies.

He mostly slunk along the walls, trying to avoid trouble. Mostly he was looking for, and not looking for, Eames. A few times he caught sight of a man with calves like Eames’s, or a laugh like Eames’s, but the other parts were wrong, and it was impossible to cobble together a person from parts of other people.

He had accepted the possibility that Eames wasn’t there when he found himself staring at a woman in a towering blonde wig. A man had his hand on her waist and was kissing her neck, and she swiveled her head around as he passed by. She cocked her eyebrow and pursed her red lips, which were overwhelmingly full. She was beautiful, and she was not a woman.

The spell was broken by the approach of another man, dressed in a simple black mask and black clothing, who bowed apologetically to the young lady he was with before he swiftly escorted Eames away. Arthur was able to retreat, muttering apologies to a pirate whose earthenware jug he knocked down. He had to remind himself of what Eames had done. It was not right to want to slip one’s hand up the skirts of a man who pries into one’s secrets, who abuses the sacred act of hospitality. But his cock ached at the thought of pushing those crinolines up and taking Eames into his mouth, his other hand rubbing its fingers over Eames’s beautiful rouged lips until the other man’s chin and cheeks were covered with the thick red stuff.

In his daze he barely realized that he was walking out onto the balcony. It was late August, but the air was already chill. Still, the weather was not quite cold enough for a thick black shawl, like the woman next to him wore over her head and wrapped around her shoulders.

She turned to him and he knew immediately that it was the woman from the church. This time more of her face was visible, but she was undoubtedly the same woman with the huge gray eyes. The woman who looked impossibly like Mallorie Cobb.

Arthur's pulse began to race. Without excusing himself, he shoved his way through a group consisting of a harlequin, a brightly-feathered bird, and a garden-variety fop. Each step seemed to slap against his heart as he ran breathlessly down the marble staircase. His hands skidded along the railing, though he was determined not to let his agitation show by grasping it like an old man or a drunkard.

He leaned against the scrolled post at the bottom. It was as if his body at that moment contained just a droplet of strength and was rationing it stingily. His fingers scrabbled for anything upright to hold onto.

Ducking beneath the stairwell, his hands clutched at his knees, and he doubled over. It was then that his thoughts chose to become articulate.

This cannot be a coincidence, he thought. She is always alone.She is always haunting the margins of gatherings, watching for someone, waiting. And her eyes pierce into my heart.

Someone has put this girl up to this to play at someone's conscience. Mine?

Someone knows.

Ears plugged up by the cotton of despair, he was slow to realize that he was not alone in the darkness under the stairs.

"I have listened to your excuses, and I find them insufficient. If you do not pay me the full balance of what you owe me by the fifteenth of October, last time’s grievous consequences will seem like a slap on the wrist, do you understand me?”

“But I promise you,” came the quiet but desperate reply. “I only need to sell this comp–”

“That’s quite enough,” said the first man’s reedy voice. “You will return upstairs, and you will pretend that nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and you will deliver all of the money to me by October fifteenth, or I will kill not only you but the also the people you love the most.”

Eames was silent for an agonizingly long time. “But Herr Graybeard,” he was finally able to croak, “there is no one I love in this city.”

Graybeard tsked. “I don’t think that’s true, Herr Eames. And trust me. I have ways of finding out whether or not you are lying. And if you are, I have ways of finding out exactly who it is you are trying to protect.”

Eames choked out his assent.

“Come along then, Herr Eames,” Graybeard said silkily. “You mustn’t make anyone wonder where you are.” Then Arthur heard their grass-muted footsteps die away.

Arthur waited until he was certain Eames and Graybeard had left. Then he crept back up the stairs.

He stood on the balcony watching the dancers, dazed, until he felt the light pressure of a hand on his arm.

"It's just me," Ariadne laughed, lowering her green feathered mask when Arthur shrank back in fear. "I've been looking for you. You've been running away from us all night. Has something more stimulating captured your attention?"

He glanced over her head, though there was no sign of Eames or his tormentor anywhere.

"Come on," she urged, tugging at his hand. "Dance with me." They stepped into a waltz.

§

"Have you heard?" Ariadne tried to swallow her mouthful of stew before she began talking, but she couldn't contain her excitement. "Marchia has received a gift from the Queen-Regent of Riesland. She had her most gifted goldsmith make an exquisite trinket as a token of her affection for the people of our country, and now it's being displayed at the Imperial Museum. And Yusuf's promised to take me to go see it tomorrow."

"But what is it, though?" Arthur asked.

Ariadne's brow crinkled. "No one is really sure."

"It's some sort of a mollusk," said Yusuf. "A mollusk made of gold, inlaid with enamel. They say it's got hundreds of thousands of florins worth of precious stones in it. And then, if you wind it up, it plays music, and all of the little fish and pearls inside it move up and down."

Arthur scraped his fork across his plate and watched the starchy brown liquid fill in the furrows. The smell of the stew, beef tips bobbing alongside root vegetables in a rich gravy, was enticing, but the moment he raised the first bite to his mouth he found himself unable to eat. He felt guilty. Ariadne, along with Yusuf's housekeeper, Brigid, had worked long and hard to prepare the meal for their guests. The silverware sparkled, and the table was covered with clean white linens. All of the chairs were filled except for one.

Since Arthur had discovered the evidence of Eames's trespassing, Eames had lived with Yusuf and Ariadne. But he wasn't at home tonight. Arthur didn't know why he would have expected any differently. Ariadne said he was perfectly fine, out giving a music lesson to the child of one of the few middle-class people who'd continued to hire him after his travesty of a concerto. Arthur's neck seemed determined to continually swivel his head towards the door.

“I have some news,” announced Yusuf, leaning forward and grinning. “Kapellmeister Miles has given me a leading role in his new opera. Rehearsals have already begun. It’s a very dark and sinister piece, about a man who murders his wife and is driven insane by guilt.”

“That is excellent news,” said Arthur, wishing he had the stomach to eat one of the hot rolls. Usually he ate two or three.

Ariadne and Yusuf began talking about the less artistic aspects of the performance. Someone had seen the soprano’s handkerchief hanging out of the oboist’s pocket. One of the supernumeraries always went left when she was supposed to go right. A viola player was rumored to be the Emperor’s illegitimate son. Two of the choir members refused to stand next to each other because one had borrowed a book from the other two years ago and it had fallen out of a carriage into a puddle.

"Arthur, is something wrong?" Ariadne asked. “You seem distracted.”

“Sorry,” he said, trying to make his glances at the door less obvious. “I’ve been busy with my own rehearsals, I suppose.” Yusuf and Ariadne looked at each other doubtfully.

After Brigid cleared the table, she set down a rich chocolate gateau. It was a Rieslandish recipe, Ariadne explained; the food and clothing of that tiny but expressive country were all the rage lately, especially since there had been talk of the Queen Regent’s son eventually marrying the Princess Naomi.

“Perhaps we should play a game,” Ariadne suggested, as she brushed a crumb from the side of Yusuf’s mouth.

“I’m sorry,” said Arthur. “I should probably leave. I’ve got an early rehearsal tomorrow.”

Yusuf chuckled. “This sounds familiar.”

“But he said that the last time, and he ended up staying!” Ariadne said sharply.

“Well,” said Yusuf, “Perhaps we’re no substitute for Eames.”

After they had finished eating and the table was cleared, he pushed his chair back from the table and looked at his hosts apologetically “Thank you for a wonderful dinner,” he said. “And one more thing—would you please send me a message letting me know that Herr Eames has returned home safely?”

Yusuf and Ariadne both nodded their assent and glanced at each other in quiet amusement.

Arthur pulled his coat tight around him and made his way out into the street just as the lamplighters were climbing up ladders to light the street lamps.

The way home took him past the street where Robert lived. He stood under Robert’s window, watching gold light bleed out from the edges of the curtains. His door jerked open, and Arthur startled, but it was only Robert’s landlord out for an evening walk. Arthur tipped his hat to the man, who bowed in recognition.

Arthur wasn’t sure why he was there. It wasn’t as if there was any unfinished business between him and Robert after all; he’d tried to apologize, Robert had shown him the brutal honesty he’d deserved, and showing his face around Robert again would likely just dredge up painful memories. But before he knew it his hand was on the doorknob, and then he was mounting the staircase with its burgundy carpet rubbed thin in the center of each step.

“You’re quite lucky I didn’t have company,” Robert said upon opening the door. There were dark circles beneath his eyes. Arthur hoped it was only due to a simple lack of sleep.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Arthur said, looking past Robert at the room with its spartan furniture and stacks of books. There was rather less furniture there than there had been the last time, he noted. “Are you—still living comfortably?”

Robert withdrew into the room and sat down on the couch. “Why? Do you expect me to ask you for money?”

Arthur stood at the end of the couch and played gingerly with the fringe of a blanket. “You know I would help you.”

“You’re not as well-off as you like to pretend, Arthur,” Robert sighed. “You only have your students and your monthly stipend from your patron. And since Eames came along, even fewer comissions.”

Arthur, throwing tact to the wind, sat down beside Robert on the couch. Robert looked down at his own knees, then stared ahead of him, as if hoping someone would burst through the door and save him from having to be alone with Arthur.

“Robert, I came here to apologize,” Arthur pleaded. “I know I apologized last time I saw you, but I was only there by coincidence. This time I wanted to apologize formally, to tell you that none of this has happened the way I intended it to.”

“So Eames ended your affair after he’d convalesced and didn’t need you anymore?” Robert asked acidly.

It would be unkind to tell Robert the truth, he thought. But it had weighed on him for weeks. And the cruel honesty between them now made Arthur feel strangely liberated to tell Robert what he could tell no-one else.

“One might say that,” Arthur said. Fear and embarrassment shot through him like a physical pain, like the snap of an eye-headache. “It was a bit more complicated, though.”

“I’m sure it was.” Robert turned to face him. Then in an instant his mask of composure vanished, and Arthur could see tension in his muscles, pain in his eyes. “I don’t even know why I even bothered to pretend, or to lie to you. I’ve known it for some time, that—“

“That what?” Arthur urged gently.

“That Eames was in love with you.”

“He has a funny way of showing it,” Arthur snapped. “He stole from me. He opened the cabinet where I keep my most private papers. And I don’t know what he was looking for, whether he wanted money or information or goods to pay off this Graybeard—“

“Graybeard is on his case?” Robert asked quietly. “As if the man didn’t have enough of everything and he needs to go after some poor musician who’s never entirely grown up.” He shook his head.

“You—you know this Graybeard?”

Robert pressed his lips together in a mirthless smile. “Only too well. Tell me, Arthur, do you know Graybeard’s real name?”

Arthur said no.

“All of Marchia knows him as a respectable merchant, an importer of luxury goods. A churchgoer, a patriot, a family man--for the most part. His name is Maurice Fischer.”

Arthur blinked rapidly, trying either to digest or to ignore what he’d just been told. “He’s—“

“My father,” said Robert. “Yes.”

§

Arthur had met Maurice Fischer. Fischer was a friend to many of the city’s noblemen, and Arthur had attended many a gala where Fischer’s exquisite taste in art or his success in acquiring some rare gem or animal horn. The man himself made a rather bland impression on Arthur; Arthur, despite his vast mental catalogue of trivia about most everyone he’d ever met, could not recall a single thing Fischer had ever said. He spoke mostly in monosyllables, and his face registered barely a hint of emotion; judging by his expressions, he seemed to be the sort of man who found everything either quite satisfactory or extremely boring. Arthur couldn’t fathom that this was the man who was almost singlehandedly in charge of all usury, smuggling, and illegal gambling in the empire. But Robert had told him that Fischer had powerful friends among the nobles, who protected him in exchange for a healthy cut of his profits.

Robert claimed that he had no idea where his father was. He hadn’t seen him in more than ten years. Nor, he swore, would anyone believe him if he testified against Fischer. They would only think of what he had to gain as a disinherited son, and he’d be laughed out of the magistrate’s office.

So it was up to Arthur to learn where Fischer lived. He’d gone back to Eames’s old favorite tavern, and Conrad the bartender had told him where to find Teresa. He’d visited Teresa’s cramped old room, remembering to bring sweets for the children.

“I can’t tell you where he is,” Teresa promised. Her eyes were wide, and Arthur could see that her hands shook.

“You will not give me any information that could help Herr Eames?” Arthur asked gently. Teresa’s youngest daughter was walking back and forth in half-circles behind Arthur’s back, staring openly at the finely-dressed stranger.

“I wish I could,” she said, rubbing at the cracked red skin of her hands. “But I don’t know anymore. He moves around a lot.”

“Do you know anyone who knows?”

Teresa rested her hand on the back of a chair over which a piece of putty-colored fabric was drying. “No.” Then her eyes drifted out the window, where a peddler was hawking newspapers. It seemed to jog her memory. “Yes.”

The boy’s name was Benjamin. He could often be found selling buttons and scraps of metal on the street, when he was not hustling at cards. Arthur found him engaged in the latter activity, sitting on the curb, his washed-out leather boots held together with string.

“Are you Benjamin? Arthur asked.

His immediate flight from the scene answered in the affirmative.

Arthur had grown up racing and running after his younger siblings on the farm, and his body had never forgotten how to move so fast it nearly disappeared. But the boy was faster. Benjamin darted down alleys, wove around horse carts and pedestrians. Arthur never entirely lost the sense of where he’d gone, as though the boy left a barely visible silver thread behind him as he ran. But when the boy turned down the street where the street vendors operated during the day, Arthur lost the thread. He’d most likely gone into or behind one of the empty market stalls, thought Arthur, resting his hand cautiously on the butt of his pistol.

He peered into the first stall. It was completely empty. He crept around to the back: nothing. He repeated this with several more stalls. Nothing. He was prepared to leave the third to last stall on the left when he saw, peeking out of a bale of hay in the corner, a black crescent that looked rather like the toe of a boot.

Swiftly he reached down into the hay and grabbed the boy’s arm. Benjamin shook himself free of the hay and blinked at Arthur.

“I’d prefer not to have to use this,” Arthur said, raising his pistol with the hand that was not clutching Benjamin’s elbow.

“Who are you?” the boy, who was not more than fourteen, whined. Arthur lowered the pistol.

“I’m a friend of Herr Graybeard’s,” he explained. “I want to know where he is.”

“I can’t tell you—ow!” he cried, as Arthur gripped his arm harder.

“If you tell me, and if you don’t lie or tell anyone else who’s been asking, I promise you, I can give you a reward much bigger than any he’s ever given you. Because unlike Herr Graybeard, money means very little to me, and I have no qualms about being generous.”

“All right. I swear, I really, really don’t know where he is now, though.”

“But you know where he might be.” Arthur loosened his grip a bit.

The boy nodded fearfully. “He’s got three houses that I know of. One’s in the Latin Quarter, that’s where he goes when he has to really lay low, I think. One’s by the Imperial Gardens, and that’s where he goes whenever he’s trying to entertain a mistress, it’s by all the parties and dress shops—“

A mistress. There had been a woman with Fischer at the masked ball.

“--And one other one, on the outskirts of town, near Hermanstrasse. Not sure what that one’s for. But I think he keeps most of his money there, ‘cause there are always people going there with bags.”

I know where he is.

“Have you seen him with his mask off?” Arthur asked.

Benjamin thought for a moment. “Once,” he said. “He’s an old man. He’s losing his hair, and he’s got a big nose, and his face is pock-marked.”

“Benjamin,” Arthur said, slipping a twenty-florin piece into his hand, “you have been immensely helpful.”

§

“I must admit, I’m somewhat confused, Herr Hahnemann,” Browning said, sipping his tea. “You are accusing Herr Fischer of being a criminal based on hearsay. I hope you know me well enough to know that I do not like my time being wasted.”

“I am not wasting your time,” Arthur argued. “The boy’s description of Graybeard matched Fischer’s perfectly.”

“There are a lot of older men with larger noses and pock-marked faces,” Browning laughed. “Perhaps I even fit that description. Are you ready to accuse me of theft and murder?”

“But Your Excellency, I have heard both their voices, and they sounded exactly the same.”

Browning stood up. “I am sorry, Herr Hahnemann,” he said. “I am truly sorry that your dear Herr Eames is in danger, and I know that you wish to do something to protect him, but do you really think that you alone will be able to do what our city’s entire constabulary has been unable to do for all these years? Fischer is an upstanding man. Please, do not trouble yourself about this any more.”

Arthur glanced back at Browning as he exited the meeting room. He was disappointed. He had always considered Browning an impartial judge of character, and he wondered why a man who was so willing to spend so much time analyzing the drinking habits of a court composer would so readily dismiss an accusation of such gravity from a man he allegedly trusted.

He went home; he had been spending less and less time in his quarters at the palace. It was late afternoon. He sat on the couch and tried to relax with a heavy volume of poetry.

It was ridiculous to think that the couch might still smell like Eames. He stretched out, turning his face into one of the pillows in defiance of that sweet, musky, lingering scent.

“It isn’t good to sulk, you know.” Christina stood in the door, rubbing a cloth over the head of a porcelain figurine.

“’M’not sulking,” he groaned, and propped himself up against the couch’s arm.

“There’s news from Riesland,” she said. “I heard it at the market. The gentry has revolted. They hanged the Queen Regent and all her advisors, and now there’s fighting in the streets.”

Arthur’s eyes shot open. “Have you heard any more?”

Christina shook her head. She looked worried. “I do hope nothing like that could happen here.”

Arthur smiled. “I don’t think it would.” He fingered the tassel on a pillow absently.

“Sir, is there anything I can do for you?” she asked. “I have been practicing my recitation—would you like me to read something to you?”

He nodded, and Christina went off to fetch a book from the adjoining room.

Christina had a talent for acting, and when Eames had stayed with them they had sometimes stayed up until after midnight reading plays aloud. The play she chose to read now, from a gilt-edged red leather volume, was a tragedy by the Rieslandish playwright Belliveau, the story of two inseparable friends torn apart by jealousy and misunderstanding. Now she did each of the parts in a different voice—a maiden’s voice high and lilting, a priest’s voice booming and sonorous, a strong young man’s voice deep and soft. Arthur wondered if he were imagining things, but he could have sworn that she lent one of the friend’s voices a faint Albionorian accent.

Her delivery was riveting, but Arthur was exhausted. The room became formless, and he finally allowed himself to sink into the cushions as sleep scooped out all the life in his body like a trawling net. His dreams were shallow and transparent. Usually they were sprawling, full of people and words and infinite passageways and rooms, as if their worlds had been created by hundreds of masons and gardeners and architects together long before he entered them. But this dream felt like a rough draft, a long, dusty figure splashed starkly across a void. Although he could only see parts of the figure at a time—a shoulder, a wrist, a lock of tangled hair—he knew well who it was, and he tried to reach out to him.

Forgive me, he tried to say. If you are the voice of judgment, I deserve the sentence.

Eames disappeared into a smothering fog, and Arthur was alone. Or he thought he was alone. He became aware of the heat of bodies behind him, of silent, faceless men. When they reached out, their dark robes fell down their arms and he saw that their long skeletal fingers did not end but dissolved into mist. They pushed him down onto his knees. He strained to open his eyes, but he was paralyzed.

Before him was a block of wood with a groove in it. A groove the width of a human neck. He felt a hand on the back of his head, an almost gentle hand, and it guided his head down; from there he knew what he was supposed to do. Meekly, he lowered his neck into the groove and waited. The blade came down with a smack.

Arthur opened his eyes and sat up, reacquainting himself with the light and the steady rhythm of his heart. The smacking sounds continued.

“Sir!” Anton called from outside, banging on the door. “I have urgent matters to discuss with you!”

Arthur sprang to his feet. “Come in.”

Anton looked perturbed, and when Arthur looked at him a second time he noticed that he was clutching his arm and that blood was reddening his sleeve.

“Dear Lord, what’s happened to you?” Arthur cried. “Christina?”

“I’m already fetching supplies,” she called breathlessly from the kitchen.

“Sir,” Anton began, “I was polishing your boots upstairs when I heard a loud noise. I went into the study to investigate, and there was a strange man in there. He drew his sword, and I drew mine, and luckily I was able to wound him badly enough that he could no longer fight. He’s lost quite a bit of blood, and although he was able to escape, I am sorry to say I am not sure he is alive.”

One of Fischer’s men, no doubt, Arthur thought. Thank God I taught Anton to duel.

“Can you tell me anything about him?”

“He was well-trained in swordfighting,” Anton replied. “He didn’t look or fight like a ruffian. And his blade was exceedingly well-made.”

Arthur tapped his fingers against his lips. “What did the blade look like?”

“It was—I didn’t get much of a chance to look at it, but I could have sworn that there were red stones, rubies perhaps, on the handle.”

Arthur’s breath caught in his throat.

“Are you absolutely sure about that?” he said. His voice cracked.

There were other possibilities, he thought. Perhaps the blade was stolen. Or forged.

But by all indications the man was a member of the Imperial Guard.

§

Arthur had learned the Emperor’s habits well. He knew that Saito valued solitude, and that there were times when he went riding or hunting alone. These times were not regular, and they certainly were not announced, but they often occurred when the Emperor was in a dark mood, and the troubles in Riesland cast a pall over everyone in the court. But Arthur also knew that the troubles in Riesland would make him far more cautious about his personal security. He would likely cling to his advisors. It would be hard to get so much as a note to him without it being examined. And who could he trust as a messenger?

There was only one person at the palace whom he trusted to be above corruption by greed or power-lust.

After Naomi had struggled through the last arpeggiated chords of an aubade by de Clerambault—all lesson long she had been distracted by the curtain-strained motes of light that signified the last of October’s warm days—Arthur slipped her a tiny piece of paper.

“I’d like to talk to your father,” he whispered, watching a coat-tail flash by outside the door. “And I’d prefer to see him alone.”

“Papa doesn’t like to see anyone alone these days,” she said. “He says it’s hard to trust people.”

“Your father is a wise man,” Arthur said, trying to lower his voice as much as he could. “But this is exactly why I need to speak with him alone. There is great danger to him.”

Naomi’s lip began to tremble. “I will tell him.”

§

Arthur had already agreed to be stripped down and inspected for weapons. Now they were riding through a forest populated by immense pines; only the thinnest splinters of light pierced through the moist darkness. The deft horses wove around the trees; their heavy footsteps on the crackling needles released surges of fragrance, a scent that always reminded Arthur of his father staggering home with bundles of wood that he’d coax into the shapes of cradles or chairs.

“We should ride a little farther away from the guards,” Arthur suggested. Saito looked at him suspiciously, but he dug his heels into the glossy black horse’s flanks.

When they came to a clearing, Arthur dismounted. Saito did the same.

“You have two minutes, Herr Hahnemann,” Saito warned.

Arthur took a deep breath and tried to compose his thoughts. He was about to accuse the Emperor’s most trusted official. If he was proven wrong, Arthur himself could be suspected of of sedition, of treason. But Arthur’s instinct told him beyond a doubt that Browning was colluding with Fischer. And that, therefore, exposing Browning would mean exposing Fischer for what he actually was. Otherwise the merchant would go on enjoying the protection of all those with the power to arrest him. And Eames…Arthur tried to push all those thoughts from his head.

“Your Highness,” Arthur began, his tongue feeling like fast-drying clay, “I have reason to believe that the Chancellor is not who he appears to be.”

Saito’s brow furrowed. “In what sense?”

Arthur stepped cautiously closer. He turned and saw vermillion shapes cut through eclipsing green cover; the guards were breaching the forest wall.

“I had evidence that the merchant Maurice Fischer is actually a criminal, by the name of Graybeard.” Saito’s face perked in recognition. “I heard his voice at a ball, threatening a friend. Then Fischer’s son told me the truth about Graybeard, and then I began to think back on my encounters with Fischer. His voice sounded exactly the same. A boy who claimed he saw Graybeard without his mask on described him, and he sounds like Fischer.”

“And what does Browning have to do with this?” Saito asked.

Arthur cleared his throat. “I met with Browning to tell him what I’d heard. Browning dismissed it. That night, a man broke into my home, presumably with intent to kill me. My manservant fought him off, but he saw that the intruder used the blade of an Imperial Guard.”

“This is circumstantial evidence, Herr Hahnemann,” Saito accused. “And you have reasons for wanting Browning out of his office, do you not? He stood in the way of your receiving the position of Kapellmeister.”

“I did not desire the position of Kapellmeister, Your Worship,” Arthur said earnestly. “Herr Browning has always been a supporter of my music, and until now, I have always had the utmost respect and trust for him. But I believe that he tried to have me killed because I discovered the truth. And I believe that he is a danger to your court, and possibly to you.”

Saito looked ready to open his mouth to cut Arthur’s speech off.

“And—and, Your Worship—I heard Fisc—Graybeard—promising to put an end to Eames’s life. If you do not act, the greatest musical mind of our time will be snuffed out as if he were no more significant than a rat. I may be wrong, but you must at least try to cut off this corruption at its roots. Expose Browning, and you will expose Fischer.”

The guards were approaching. Saito halted them with a hand.

“And what do you suggest I do about this, Herr Hahnemann?”

“I think,” Arthur said softly, “that there might be a way to catch him.”

§

“I have no idea how to catch him,” Arthur moaned, head in his hands, elbows resting on Yusuf’s table. Ariadne waved a forkful of spiced apples under his nose, but he grunted and rested his forehead on the tablecloth.

“What is the relationship between Browning and Fischer anyway?” Yusuf asked.

“The way Robert, his son, explained it to me, Fischer’s wealthy patrons offer him protection in exchange for money and luxury goods. And they allow him to maintain his monopoly on trade in the city.”

“Trade.” Ariadne interjected. “Can we lure Browning out with the promise of goods? That’s what he’s after, isn’t it?”

“I presume so,” said Arthur. “But he’ll be suspicious if someone promises him money—we don’t know how their interactions work, and how much of a cut he gets from Fischer.”

Yusuf held his fork in a loose fist and tapped its end on the table, the way he often did with a pencil when he was thinking. “What if we have Fischer ask him for a favor?”

“What do you mean?” Arthur said.

“Well, as chancellor, Browning has access to certain things at the palace. Things that Fischer might very well want to own or to sell. What black market trader wouldn’t want to get his hands on—“

“The Golden Mollusk!” Ariadne interjected, nearly leaping out of her seat. “Send Browning a forged note from Graybeard asking him to acquire the golden mollusk. Then, if Browning’s really working for him, he’ll bring it to a dropoff location.”

Arthur chewed his lip. “But how’s that going to prove anything? Who’s going to see all of this happen?”

“Well,” said Yusuf, “the Emperor himself would have to see it, if he’s going to believe it.”

“And where? Browning’s not going to be foolish enough to conduct illicit business in the palace or anywhere he can be seen. We need somewhere that’s private enough to inspire confidence, but public enough where people can hide and listen.”

“The Hedge Maze,” stated Ariadne.

“You are brilliant,” Yusuf said, beaming at her. “The Hedge Maze would be perfect. You get him to meet his contact in there. Then, you’re hiding on the other side of wherever he is, and you can hear everything. The Emperor can even hide guards in there. And when he gives himself away, you can pounce on him.”

Ariadne had grabbed a notebook and a quill and was drawing a map of the hedge maze, hurriedly and crookedly, but with perfect accuracy. I’ve walked this maze so many times I know every twist and turn. Here.” She touched the quill to the paper and the ink bled out in a thick circle. “There’s a hidden chamber in here. It looks like solid foliage, but there’s actually a door you can walk through. I only came upon it by accident.”

“You think he’s going to fall for this?” Arthur asked skeptically.

“He may not,” said Yusuf. “But it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

Arthur nodded reluctantly.

“Is Eames here?” he asked after a few moments of silence.

“I’m not sure,” Yusuf answered. “You can go upstairs and see, if you like.”

Arthur folded up his napkin. He walked through the parlor and up the stairs, treading as soundlessly as possible. The room where Eames was staying was dark and cold. Arthur stepped up to the bed and ran his fingertips over the covers; the bed was flat. He walked around to the other side to pull the curtains open, and when light flooded the room he took note of a long, looped piece of leather poking out from under the bed. He gave it a tug. It was attached to a bag, a heavy one judging by the resistance it gave. Inside the bag was the glint of metal. Arthur reached into it and pulled out a silver candlestick studded with opal and citrine. Reduced to stealing from his students’ parents to pay off his debts, Arthur thought, his heart flooding with sadness like a cracked barrel.

Oh, Eames.

§

The plan was in place.

Arthur had convinced Robert to forge a note in his father’s handwriting, asking Browning to meet Fischer’s messenger in the hedge maze at nine o’clock with the golden mollusk in hand.

He had convinced Benjamin to play the role of Fischer’s messenger, a role the boy knew well. If any more was needed to persuade Browning to appear at the meeting spot, Benjamin was prepared to explain that the current upheaval in Riesland and the subduing of its royalty had put Rieslandish goods at a premium. It was certain to fetch a prettier florin now than before, even when it had been the perplexed and amused talk of all Marchia.

He had convinced Saito to accompany him, in the garb of a beggar, to the hedge maze with his two most trusted guards.

All that was left to do was to convince Browning to appear at the hedge maze. If all went well, if Benjamin actually could be trusted to find Browning in town and show him the proper dead end, if the note appeared authentic, then Arthur should be hearing the sound of footsteps at any time. But there was no sign of Browning. He could hear Benjamin muttering to himself on the other side of the wall as Arthur pressed his ear to the door.

Finally, when he had begun to despair, Arthur heard the sound of heavy footsteps. It was apparent that there was more than one person with Browning.

“We should probably inspect this maze first,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said from a distance. “Make sure we’re completely alone. You wait here, boy.”

Arthur closed his his eyes. He heard the voice becoming louder and clearer as he neared the hidden chamber; then the footsteps died away.

The footsteps became louder again.

“Looks like it isn’t a trap then,” Browning said. “And if someone’s trying to box us in here, the others outside will take care of it.” He doesn’t know about the hidden chamber. Arthur released the breath he’d been holding.

Then Benjamin began to speak.

“Have you brought the goods, Your Excellency?” There was silence.

Finally Browning spoke. “No, boy, I have not brought the goods. And do you know why?”

“Why?” Benjamin asked.

“Because this little note of yours?” There was the sound of paper rustling. “It’s quite obviously a fake. Herr Fischer’s penmanship has deteriorated noticeably with age. This is his handwriting from ten years ago. I don’t know who you’re working for, but it isn’t any friend of mine.” Browning laughed. “Heinrich, make this boy talk.” Arthur heard the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Wait.” Saito pushed the door open, and Arthur held up a lantern that illuminated the shock on Browning’s face.

Browning raised his hands and let his pistol clatter to the soft ground.

§

“I can’t believe you managed it.” Ariadne squeezed Arthur’s hands.

“I did so little,” he said, sheepishly meeting her eyes.

“But you knew it was possible.”

They strolled along past the market stalls at midday. Arthur tried to resist the temptations of Turkish taffy and candy glass while Ariadne picked up a strand of coral beads to admire them.

“You know, you can afford to buy those now,” he mentioned. She turned to look at him, wide-eyed. He smiled softly.

“I insisted that he allow Fischer’s son to take control of the company, and that he allow him to keep much of the money in Fischer’s coffers. Most of it has been returned to the ones from whom it was stolen. But I also received a percentage which I thought it would only be right to share with you and Yusuf.”

“Why do you care so much about Fischer’s son? Oh,” she said knowingly, taking note of his downcast glance. “You do a lot of things out of guilt, don’t you, Arthur.” She let the beads fall between her fingers.

He drifted towards a stand where a woman was selling trays of rosewater candy. “No more than most people, I suppose.” He handed the woman five florins and wrapped his mouth around the small pink square. It was a good excuse not to continue the conversation.

§

The Royal Hall was bustling. Fans snapped open like the whirring click of night insects. Shoes clicked and fabric rustled. Arthur looked out over the foamy sea of wigs and prayed no one was looking back at him. It was a foolish hope.

He was surprised to see such a crowd. But the Purgatorio had given Arthur his reputation. It was the only piece with Arthur’s name attached to it that deserved to be called genius. As the seats became packed with people in stiff, shimmering clothes, Arthur tried to keep his back pressed to the stage walls, listening to the orchestra tune their instruments. He didn’t want to be congratulated.

He surveyed the audience. So many of the faces beneath the gold-ribbed dome of the opera house were as indistinct as loaves of bread. Herr Miles sat in the front row, next to the Emperor and Empress. He recognized friends and acquaintances and court officials and pretended he didn’t recognize them at all.

Then he caught sight of gleaming pink lips pressed together, and eyes which managed to give off an engaged intensity despite the difficulty of telling exactly where they were looking. Eames often seemed to be watching something no one else could see. Or he could do two things at once: he could look at a person as though they the only human thing that mattered, but then there would always be some angel or demon begging for his attention, poking out from a place between the strands of ether that existed only for a man whose vision could stop time and part space. Arthur looked away.

He had hoped that she wasn’t in the audience. But of course she was, sitting silently, almost unblinking, her black mantilla draped over her head. Tonight she would have her full power. He’d almost forgotten about her while he was chasing Fischer, despite her presence at every rehearsal of the Purgatorio; his mind was focused on his goal, on his fear of letting Eames slip away. But now he’d returned to his ordinary life, where he was expected to be the composer that he was not.

When the lights dimmed and he raised his hands to usher forward the slow, crawling whine of the violin, the wail of the dusty-handed soul doomed to crawl upwards without progress, he could feel her eyes on his back. Demanding him to break his silence. His arms seemed to fill with lead. It was grueling to raise them, and he wondered what would happen if he simply let them drop, let his head hang down. Let himself fall to the floor. If it is the belief that one deserves to live that keeps us upright, he thought, it is a wonder that I have stood all this time.

Glorious as it was, he barely heard the music as he conducted. He had done it so many times before, by rote, barely present in his own skin.

The final movement drew to its anxious close, the violin like a being at last outpacing its hornet tormentors, but without joy. Arthur let his arms fall and imagined the applause like a wave that was drowning him. It didn’t help. It still sounded like cheering.

“Please,” he vaguely heard himself say, muffled by all of the clapping. “Please.”

When he held up his hands, they finally fell silent.

It was so difficult to breathe at that moment that Arthur wondered how it had been so easy all of his life. His knees trembled. But he had to say it. It was no use keeping it a secret if someone already knew. A secret revealed to one is a secret no more, as the saying went.

“You should not be clapping for me,” he choked out. It felt like retching. “I did not write the Purgatorio.”

The crowd remained in their shocked silence.

“The piece was written by a woman I knew well. Her name—“ He looked for the woman in the crowd, as though she were actually the person she was pretending to be. “Her name was Mallorie Cobb.” He did not have the strength to turn around to see her husband’s reaction. “She was a composer, and a far better one than I. I am not even worthy of that name. But because of her sex, no one took her seriously. So we agreed that I would take credit for the Purgatorio, because she only wanted to see it performed. It was an enormous success, as you know. And then, then—“ Arthur put his hand to his mouth, dreading what came next—“she asked me if I would tell the world who the work’s true author was. I promised her I would. And I never did. I was so enamored of the money and the praise and the illustrious company and I could not bring myself to give it up. And then…then she died before I could make it right.”

The concert hall swam before him. The people whose faces he could focus on briefly wore looks of confusion and horror.

“I hereby resign from my post as court composer. I am not worthy to stand before any of you. May God keep you all.”

Arthur was running before anyone could chase him, could jeer at him.

He ran through the corridor backstage and out into the frigid open air. He had left his overcoat in the dressing room, and his jacket was not warm enough to prevent the cold from seeping under his sleeves. He was frozen in place, caught between the backs of two buildings on a sunken cobblestone road. Should he go home? Should he go to an inn where no one knew him? He did not want to face his own servants. He wanted to be in a carriage shivering along down a bumpy road, headed for a farm where he could live out the rest of his days chopping wood and pulling up turnips.

“Arthur.”

At the sound of his name he turned around slowly. The darkness was near-total, but he knew the voice. Of course he knew the voice. It had resounded in his head every night as he tried to fall asleep.

“Leave me alone,” he muttered. “You’ve done your good deed, exposed me as a fraud. Forgive me if I don’t feel like offering you my thanks right now.”

“Arthur, I don’t know what you’re talking about—“ Eames called after him, but Arthur realized at that moment that it was not necessary to choose the perfect direction. It was only necessary to escape. He ran, blood percussive in his ears, down the deserted city streets. No one followed.

Part 4

Podfic: Honour Amongst Thieves by black_betty_26, read by templemarker

2011-09-06T02:23:54Z

Title: Honour Amongst Thieves
Author: black_betty_26
Reader: templemarker
Team: ANGST
Prompt: Bonds, Devotion
Rating: PG
Word count: 1700
Time: 10:41
Notes: Thanks to black_betty_26 for letting me podfic this, and to the ae_match mods for the amnesty period! You can stream or download this podfic from soundcloud.

Summary: In which Arthur makes a decision, Eames is in trouble, and the taxies in Cairo are falling apart.

Honor Amongst Thieves by black_betty_26 [read by templemarker] by templemarker

Podfic: A Café Called Limbo by black_betty_26, read by templemarker

2011-09-06T01:27:15Z

Title: A Café Called Limbo
Author: black_betty_26
Artist: heavenly_rain
Reader: templemarker
Team: ANGST
Prompt: Whiskey & Rum, Balcony
Word count: 1,318
Time: 8:03
Rating: G
Summary: In times of war people do desperate things for motivations sometimes unknown. Arthur may have done something he didn't realise he would regret.

Notes: Thanks to heavenly_rain and black_betty_26 for letting me podfic this, and to the ae_match mods for the amnesty period! You can stream or download this podfic from soundcloud.

A Cafe Called Limbo by black_betty_26 [read by templemarker] by templemarker

[Fic + Art]: Half-Life 1/?

2011-09-05T19:49:10Z

Title: Half-Life 1/?
Author/Artist: beanarie & red_rahl
Team: Romance
Prompt: Silence, Devotion, Bonds, Forever
Word count: ~900
Rating: PG
Warnings: Not for people who don’t like fusion-crossover things, or somewhat anachronistic fairy tales.
Summary: Eames and Arthur are a pair of lovers cursed to never be truly together. Ariadne is a pickpocket who stumbles into their story and becomes part of it. Ladyhawke AU.
Author’s Note: red_rahl is fantastic.
Artist's Note: I approve of this idea so hard and I'm really glad beanarie came up with it! I really love the movie (well, not the horrendous 80's fighting music) and I am so looking forward to the rest of this crossover! *flails and flops over*

(And that was how she got caught with her fingers on the innkeeper's purse.)

September free-for-all!

2011-09-04T17:51:29Z

By overwhelming majority, the community has voted to make September a non-competitive posting free-for-all!

That's right, the fun will continue!!

Post any and everything you'd like in terms of fic, podcasts, art, and collaborations of all three. We'll even accept fanmixes! As always, feel free to use past prompts, and be sure to tag your entries!

A few notes:

- Team points WILL NOT be awarded. This is just for fun and participation!
- New prompt posts WILL NOT be posted. If you need prompts, use the prompt tags for the community.
- You do not have to post directly to the commmunity if you do not wish to. Just be sure to link back to your LJ/DW/AO3 account with appropriate headers/ratings/warnings.
- Posting will continue through all of September!

That's it! Have at it, everyone! ♥

Softy Guide to Angst

2011-09-03T05:57:25Z

So, throughout match I've been updating a guide to Team Angst fics so that people who have an aversion to unhappy endings can enjoy some of the more angst-filled stories without having to worry about character death or other things ruining their night.

I am happy to say that I believe I've read every Team Angst fic now.

So in all it's glory, I present The Softy Guide to ae-angst Fics

Some of the stories are still WIPS. I don't know if I'll be able to update the guide as I will be working on other things in fandom, but each author that, so far, has an incomplete fic is able to edit the guide and add the next chapters of their stories if they choose.

As always, I am a flawed individual and have tried to the best of my abilities to categorize everything properly, but it was difficult in some cases. Please don't hesitate to tell me if anything is improperly labeled.

Weekly Roundup - Week 9

2011-08-31T07:41:14Z

Below, you will find a master list of all entries for the final week - Week 9.

Weekly Roundup - Week 9

Team Angst - Week 9

Chimera: Lioness Passant - bauble + enoughglitter (Fic + Art)
And It Hurts Like Hell - heavenly_rain + ohmydarlingdear + climb + canyousayhot (Fic + Art + Podfic)
Kiss Me (Down by the Broken Tree House) - essouffle + cs_whitewolf (Fic + Art)
darkest before dawn - cs_whitewolf (Fic)
Truth, Bitter Truth - avaserenity (Fic)
Late to Settle 1/5 - yjudaes (Fic)
Here by Grace - cathenian + shiroi_ten (Fic + Art)
I guess you really did it this time - ohmydarlingdear (Fic)
Chimera: The Goat 2/4 - bauble + enoughglitter (Fic)
All We Know - cathenian (Fic)
Late to Settle 2/5 - yjudaes (Fic)
pockets full of stones - hungerpunch (Fic)
Call in the Cleaners - lezzerlee (Fic)
The Thing Around Your Neck - chibi_lurrel (Fic)
For You the War Is Over (1/3) - maybe77 (Fic)
Late to Settle 3/5 - yjudaes (Fic)
No One Has a Photo of This Man 3/5
- sneaqui (Fic)
The remedy will agree with how I feel - solitudeinherk (Fic)
Opportunity Regained - zeto (Fic)
hell of a long way home - ester_inc + templemarker (Fic + Podfic)
For You the War Is Over (2/3) - maybe77 (Fic)
Just A Cuppa - lezzerlee + templemarker (Fic + Podfic)
The effect of living backwards - ohmydarlingdear + templemarker (Fic + Podfic)
can’t help falling - essouffle + cs_whitewolf (Fic + Art)
Call in the Cleaners - lezzerlee + templemarker (Fic + Podfic)
Take A Look At Your Face - lezzerlee (Fic)
Untitled - essouffle (Art)
all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling (Part 2 + Epilogue) - shiroi_ten + black_betty_26 (Fic + Art)
'Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems - avocado_love + templemarker (Fic + Podfic)
Jackknife - ladderax + templemarker (Fic + Podfic)
It's the end of the world as we know it - claudia_nic (Fic)
the place that i call home pt. 1 - hungerpunch (Fic)
Untitled - essouffle (Art)
Sad Song - essouffle (Art)
The Loneliness Of You Mighty Men - ladderax (Fic)
Be strong for us, darling - ohmydarlingdear (Fic)
Battaglia Con Brio (1/4) - ladderax + yjudaes (Fic + Art)
Late to Settle - yjudaes (Fic)
For You the War Is Over (3/3) - maybe77 (Fic)
All is Violent, All is Bright 7/11 - datingwally + lezzerlee (Fic + Art)
All is Violent, All is Bright 8/11 - lezzerlee (Fic)
Greater than Want, Deeper than Need (Part 4 of 4) - eternalsojourn + chaostheorem (Fic)
Late to Settle [5/5] - yjudaes (Fic)
Battaglia Con Brio (2/4) - ladderax (Fic)
And You Should Have Listened - croik + templemarker (Fic + Podfic)
Safe Places - eternalsojourn (Fic)
Emo boy in love - heavenly_rain + cathenian (Fic + Art)
Adrenaline - abysmal_seraph (Fic)
Here I Will Be - cathenian (Fic)

Team Romance - Week 9

Fight Night - uncafe + helioshyperion (Fic + Art)
Give us an A! Give us an E! - fifteen of fifteen - adelaide_rain (Fic)
Arthur's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - helioshyperion (Fic)
Blind - twisted_ream (Fic)
Fraternization - tessykins (Fic)
Signified - duckgirlie + ilovetakahana (Fic + Art)
58) Sulking is neither professional nor attractive - immoral_crow + unvarnishedtale (Fic)
Fruit salad 1/3 - weatherfront + adelaide_rain (Fic + Art)
Soft around the edges - kiyala (Fic)
eames on food 1/3 - duckgirlie + uncafe (Fic + Art)
Fruit salad 2/3 - weatherfront + adelaide_rain (Fic + Art)
59) None of us want to enter your subconscious when you're hungover. In future do not drink on the job - immoral_crow + unvarnishedtale (Fic)
Beside the Green, Green Grass - red_rahl (Art)
How to Love a Mocking Bird - sparkledark + red_rahl (Fic + Art)
eames on food 2/3 - duckgirlie + uncafe (Fic + Art)
Baby, Please Remember Me Once More Part 5 - duckgirlie (Fic)
How the Future's Done - five_ht + platina (Fic + Art)
Consume My Heart Away - recrudescence + platina (Fic + Art)
Fruit salad 3/3 - weatherfront + adelaide_rain (Fic + Art)
The Teenage Queen, the Loaded Gun - helioshyperion (Fic)
100 Things Eames Is No Longer Allowed To Do #35 & #36 - unvarnishedtale + immoral_crow + red_rahl (Fic + Art)
52) Britain no longer has an Empire, and you must stop referring to other team members as 'rude, unlettered Colonials' - immoral_crow + unvarnishedtale (Fic)
Some Wild Darling, part 1 - venilia (Fic)
eames on food 3/3 - duckgirlie + uncafe (Fic + Art)
Stranger than (Science) Fiction - tessykins (Fic)
Reversal - helioshyperion (Fic)
The New Stuff - foxxcub + adelaide_rain (Fic + Art)
Quito - starbolin (Fic)
50) If Arthur says he wants lunch he does not mean you should lie naked on the table covered in sushi. - unvarnishedtale + immoral_crow (Fic)
In the shadow of the Venus of Nevada - adelaide_rain (Fic)
The Listeners - duckgirlie + keelain (Fic + Art)
To Court (5/?) - kiyala + red_rahl (Fic + Art)
The Fischer Job (Part 2/2) - i_m_pk + venilia (Fic)
Coda: Flightless Bird, American Mouth - jeannedecarnin (Fic)
The price of perfection - immoral_crow + red_rahl (Fic + Art)
Tripwire - recrudescence (Fic)
Some Wild Darling, part 2 - venilia (Fic)
: A hell for every man 1/2 - adelaide_rain + evillunatic (Fic + Art)
73) Stop waking Arthur up by staring at him. - immoral_crow + unvarnishedtale (Fic)
The Physiological Response to Absurdity - starlingthefool + red_rahl (Fic + Art)
Follow You Anywhere (The Leap of Faith) - themostepotente (Fic)
To Court (6/?) - kiyala (Fic)
Dinner - dumbimps (Art)
Sleeping still on the bright side - keelain (Art)
Pay My Respects to Grace and Virtue - helioshyperion (Fic)
last in a series of one night stands - cmonkatiekatie (Fic)
let your love grow tall - dumbimps (Art)
To Court (7/8) - kiyala (Fic)
Dreaming of a white Christmas - duckgirlie + adelaide_rain (Fic)
A hell for every man 2/2 - adelaide_rain + evillunatic (Fic + Art)
Home is Where the Heart Is (You’re in Mine) - venilia (Fic)
: UNTITLED RAIN THING - wrenton + keelain (Fic + Art)
Hand in hand is the only way to land, pt. 6 - sirona_gs + red_rahl (Fic + Art)
Limbo - adelaide_rain (Fic)
Without Grace 1/2 - platina + cthonical (Fic + Art)
So, this is my... boyfriend. - duckgirlie (Fic)
Where the Ocean Meets the Sky - red_rahl (Art)

Note: Please don't hesitate to comment if there are any broken links/coding errors or any items left off this list or under the wrong team.

(Master Master List coming soon!)

FINALE PARTY POST!!

2011-08-29T15:04:05Z

ae_match is officially over, but we can still celebrate all the FANTASTIC AND AWESOME things that were contributed to fandom!!

Comment here with comments, gifs, hugs, anything to show your appreciation for everyone's hard work! Rec some stories others might have missed! Proclaim your undying love for your artist collaborator!

BREAK OUT THE BOOZE AND LET'S RING OUT THIS BABY!

***The official "winner" will be announced later today, along with final point totals and a masterlist of team contributions.

...But really, ae_match is all about fandom love and participation--as corny as it sounds, BOTH teams are winners. <33333333

P.S. How does everyone feel about an auxiliary posting period? Do you have a fic/art/podcast you didn't get finished in time, but are dying to post? September could be a month of non-point-eligible posting for those of you who'd still like to contribute to your team in spirit.

View Poll: Should the (non-competitive) fun continue?

[Fic] Here I Will Be

2011-08-29T05:59:09Z

Title: Here I Will Be
Author: cathenian
Team: Angst
Prompt: Overwhelmed.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 900
Summary: Arthur takes a small step in his recovery, but it's rewards are huge.
A/N: Sequel to 'Take My Mind' and 'Don't Make Me Sleep Alone' This is rushed crazy fic man, I have no idea! D:

This is the third morning in a row that Arthur has stood in front of the sliding glass doors leading out of the apartment and onto a balcony. It’s been just over a week since he worked himself up to opening the curtains, which had been a safety net of sorts. The curtains had blocked out the outside world, closing off the nights where it was dark enough that all he could see was his own reflection, trapping him; and they kept him hidden away from the day, where the world carried on as if nothing had happened.

Eames had quietly tolerated Arthur’s behaviour, but Arthur knew that it had to be straining to deal with him. He shook off that line of thought, because if he started thinking about Eames, his stomach would twist into knots and he would get caught on the ‘why’ of it all again.

He braced his hand against the glass, the last barrier between him and an uncaring world. He leaned forward, resting his forehead beside his hand and closing his eyes. Breathing softly, he felt his tense muscles loosen, his fear melt away until he was numb.

He was alone, but this was different than it had been when he had been left to sleep alone for a night. This time there was warm daylight filtering in from the windows, beating against his skin pleasantly. There was the smell of coffee on the air, subtle, but grounding. The bustle of traffic wiped away all the sounds of the building that could possibly drag him back down into the nightmares of his memories.

Being left alone in the day was tolerable, if not pleasant. He knew that it was a sign that he was getting better, because at the start, he had needed a constant companion. He had needed someone to talk, someone to brush a hand across his arm or cheek, someone to fill the oppressive void left by the neglect of his senses.

With a shaking hand, he reached for the door handle, but he kept his eyes on the world outside. The lock slid with a delicate click under his fingers, no resistance against the barest of touch. His fingers wrapped around the handle, his hold loose and hesitant.

Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply, before pulling on the handle. The door slid in its frame, a burst of heat and noise moving seamlessly into the apartment. It was familiar, reminiscent of nights spent in hotel rooms and pulling open the windows to take in the places of the world: New York, Milan, London, Toronto, Tokyo, Paris, Prague and Los Angeles.

He was tempting fate by opening himself up to the world, by stepping out into what could be an overwhelming experience. He has spent too much time hiding though, an opinion of his own. He pushed past the fear and took that final step outside.

He stumbled forward, his hands grasping the balcony giving himself a moment to catch the air in his lungs. After a moment, he opened his eyes, looking out into the streets, where people are walking and driving by, as if nothing had changed. The laugh that bubbled through him was unexpected, but he was hysterical with the realization that it was all okay.

Stepping outside hadn’t set him off, hadn’t abused his senses that haven’t been right for a while now. His shoulders slumped, the tension draining from his body on a wave. He contained the laugh, running a hand down his face and just taking it all in.

The sudden touch down his back had him spinning around, arms up and prepared to attack. Eames was there though, grabbing onto his hands and giving them a slight squeeze. There was a smile blooming on his face, relief and what looked like joy.

“What are you doing out here?” Eames asked, cocking his head to the side. He had bags under his eyes, stress worn lines around mouth, new developments. Arthur pulled his hands away from Eames’ and cupped them around his cheeks, pulling him in close so that he can rest their foreheads together.

“I did it, I actually managed it Eames.” Arthur gasped in excitement, a small shiver racing through his body. Eames enfolded his hands over Arthur’s hips, pulling him in close, before leading him back into the apartment. He pulled Arthur to the couch and sat him down, not bothering to close the door behind them.

He knelt in front of Arthur, his arms curling around his waist and his cheek resting against Arthur’s thigh. Arthur’s hand smoothed through his hair: wonderingly, instinctively. Eames released a ragged breath, his hold tightening momentarily. “Welcome back Arthur.”

Arthur didn’t bother saying that he never went anywhere, that he’d been here the whole time. He knew what Eames was trying to say. He was giving the answer to Arthur’s unasked question. He was telling Arthur ‘why’. He was telling him that he stayed to help Arthur get part of himself back.

There was something else too, Arthur realized. It was in the way Eames wasn’t letting him go, it was in the way he was holding him close and the small noises escaping him. He was showing Arthur that he wasn’t going anywhere.

Arthur smiled and let his fingers tangle in the hairs at the back of Eames' neck. "Thank you Eames. I'm glad to be back."